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Word: sleds (lookup in dictionary) (lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
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Usage:

...hero of Air Force men. Last year, riding an earlier version of the Sonic Wind, he reached a speed of 632 m.p.h., faster than the flight of a .45-cal. bullet, far faster than any earthbound man had ever traveled before. At the end of the run the sled went down from 632 m.p.h. to a dead stop in 1.4 seconds. As the sled decelerated, Colonel Stapp was subjected to more than 40 times the pull of gravity (40 gs); his normal weight of 168 ½ lbs. momentarily shot up to 6,740 lbs. The driver of an ordinary automobile...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Medicine: The Fastest Man on Earth | 9/12/1955 | See Source »

...motion is confined to his diaphragm. A rubber bite block (equipped with a recording accelerometer) is slipped between his teeth; a helmet visor is latched down in front of his face; a cord is placed in one hand, ready to trigger a movie camera aimed at his face. Then sled and rider are left alone; all hands retire to the safety of the control building or smaller concrete bunkers placed at intervals along the track...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Medicine: The Fastest Man on Earth | 9/12/1955 | See Source »

...does it feel? By the time the sled hit the water brakes, wrote Stapp about one of his recent rides, "vision became a shimmering salmon-colored field with no images ... It felt as though my eyes were being pulled out of my head, about the same sort of sensation as when a molar is yanked . . . When the sled stopped, the salmon-colored blur was still there ... I lifted my eyelids with my fingers, but I couldn't see a thing. It was as though I was looking directly at the sun through closed eyelids...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Medicine: The Fastest Man on Earth | 9/12/1955 | See Source »

...They put me on a stretcher and in a minute or two I saw some blue specks . . . In about eight minutes or so after the stopping of the sled the blue specks became constant and pretty soon they became blue sky and clouds. I saw one of the surgeons wiggling his fingers at me and I was able to count them. Then I knew that . . . my retinas had not been detached and I wasn't going to be blind. I had two of the most beautiful shiners any man ever had." The shiners were caused by his eyeballs shooting...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Medicine: The Fastest Man on Earth | 9/12/1955 | See Source »

Hope of Immortality. Not long ago a friend asked Colonel Stapp what he thought about as he sat there strapped in his sled, waiting for the countdown. The reply: "First I look around at the mountains and at the bright skies and I don't think about anything. Then I say to myself, 'Paul, it's been a good life...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Medicine: The Fastest Man on Earth | 9/12/1955 | See Source »

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