It wasn't a dangerous experiment to them and was worth risking one entire ship. They weren't looking to create a space time vortex. They were just attempting to make the ship invisible to radar only.
The only real part of this story is that it's based on a real urban legend/conspiracy theory. This is the only real technology that could relate to this story, and it's far less interesting:
First of all, the History Channel program says that it was a SMALL number of men -- a skeleton crew.
Secondly, OF COURSE you're right. The government would NEVER, EVER experiment on humans without giving them informed consent. That's why the Tuskegee experiments, the LSD tripping studies, the radiation exposure experiments, etc. DID NOT occur. <sarcasm off>
It was world war 2 not some police action! If 1000 men had to die to save 5000 so be it! It was very very far from politically correctness & there were liberals in office but NOTHING like todays liberal animal lover types.