Having an interest in aviation, he became Flight Surgeon with the rank of First Lieutenant in Army Medical Corps Reserve.

Lovelace used his privately owned clinic to invite twenty-five women to take the testing regimen developed for NASA's Project Mercury astronauts.

[3] Prior to beginning testing, Lovelace's women had to undergo thorough examinations which included numerous x-rays and four hour eye exams.

[7] During World War II, Lovelace served in the United States Army Air Forces.

[11] In 1951, Lovelace's clinic was awarded a contract by the United States Atomic Energy Commission to conduct field and laboratory experiments on the injuries caused by nuclear detonation on more than a dozen different kinds of animals.

[12] Lovelace's clinic tested pilots assigned to fly the Lockheed U-2 spy plane of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

As head of NASA's Life Sciences, he would then play a key role in the selection of the astronauts chosen for Project Mercury.

Their bodies were found by a search party days later after their efforts were delayed due to a severe snow storm.