Ralph Pelligra, a beloved Liberty Dock friend, died at home peacefully on Wednesday, October 15th at the age of 93 with his wife, Olivia, by his side.
Ralph’s relationship with his love, Olivia, was an inspiration to all of those around them. If anything in the world is true, it’s that Ralph’s love for her was timeless. They were married for 30 years, and he often shared how he credits her nurturing and care for giving him so much life in his older years. Aside from a passion for each other’s work, he considered himself spoiled by her liveliness and creative cooking skills. They invited countless neighbors over for dinners, cooking lessons and banter. Experiencing their warmth together was a gift in itself.
Ralph grew up on the lower east side of New York City in a Sicilian immigrant family behind their mom-and-pop grocery store. His father, who never got past first grade, understood the value of education, and insisted that Ralph do so. Ralph grew up to be a picture of success, and those who knew him reveled in his brilliance.
Ralph spent his long and impactful career as a medical doctor. He worked for some years in private practice, but his story can’t be told without highlighting his 60-year career with NASA Ames Research Center. In 1963, Ralph heard about John Glen’s first orbital flight and NASA’s seminal work on metabolic research. At that point, he left Manhattan and moved to California. He knocked on the door at NASA Ames Research Center, was hired right away, and began by working on human research studies years before NASA sent astronauts to the moon. His main career involved human research activities, ensuring volunteer subjects from the community were informed about what they were getting into, their rights, and screening people. Once brought in, he would complete physicals and decide if subjects were appropriate for the research. Then, he would monitor them on the devices (centrifuge, altitude chambers, and other potentially risky devices).
Ralph was driven by the responsibility to keep NASA’s crew and astronauts safe. More specifically, Ralph monitored astronauts, primarily as a medical monitor for hypergravity experiments and as a medical officer for astronaut candidates. He oversaw human-rated centrifuge studies and served as the medical qualifying officer for potential astronauts, ensuring they were medically fit for spaceflight. Of the many things he was proud of was creating a first aid device used for postpartum hemorrhage, called the G-suit. He was also the author of A Reassessment of the SIDS Back to Sleep Campaign in the Scientific World Journal. He collaborated to create The Oxygen Enrichment Program, involving use of inhaled carbon dioxide to enhance blood flow and oxygen delivery to the brain in the rehabilitation and habilitation of brain-injured children.
Ralph published more than 30 papers in peer-reviewed literature, including the Journal of Aerospace Medicine, the Journal of American Medical Association, the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Encyclopedia Britannica. He found great joy in bridging the gap between scientific jargon and average people. He believed it was not a matter of intelligence, but that anyone could understand any scientific concept, no matter how difficult, if explained well.
Ralph loved his work and continued as a consultant at Ames even after his retirement earlier this year because no one could replace his invaluable and extraordinary knowledge-base. Ralph was known amongst his peers as displaying courage and moxy in his career and his volunteerism, standing up for people in their most vulnerable of times.
Ralph enjoyed his neighbors for all his years on the dock. With his pilot’s license he took many dock friends on his airplane and to tour his office. And he loved to sit out on the porch in the sun in his signature poncho while neighbors quietly walked by so as not to wake him.
To know Ralph was a gift. He made you feel like your voice was important. He would ask your opinions and ask follow-up questions on deep meaningful subjects. And do it in the best and most meaningful way possible. He was a provocateur, and those lucky enough to call themselves a friend waited on the edge of their seats for small talk to end, and the Ralph show to begin.
An ongoing conversation with Ralph that he had with many of his friends involved the notion of free will. Ralph was open to the notion that things in life were largely predetermined, but Ralph would never push his beliefs on anyone. Instead, he would engage in a Socratic-style debate with others to see how they felt about the issue and to get their ideas. For example, he once engaged in the following series of questions: “How do you feel about free will and can anybody really brag about anything they’ve done? Or is it just the luck of the draw (good genes, parents who are caring or not) and nobody can really claim to be a hero? You might be a hero because you don’t have the gene that makes the part of the brain that makes most people frightened about things?” This was typical of Ralph’s way of engaging others on topics he had clearly spent a lot of time and effort thinking and learning about. But Ralph was never lecturing others. Instead, he was always engaging with and trying to learn from others.
Ralph deeply believed that you make your own way in the world, something he was taught by his father. He believed in nature’s plan. He was a believer in science and hard truths, but he was a gentle soul. He was all the best things a person can be. Ralph is a reminder of how important it is to find joy and meaning in the people around you, to listen, to learn and to find significance in all of what life puts in our hands. And to sometimes just sit in the sun.