Word: sleds
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Biology & Hell. What sort of man is willing to risk himself habitually beyond the point of self-repair? John Paul Stapp's extraordinary track to the rocket sled began in 1910 in Bahia, northern Brazil, where his missionary father was president of the American Baptist College. Eldest of four brothers, Paul (as his family preferred to call him) had a strange boyhood. He learned to speak Portuguese long before he was permitted to pick up English; he was seldom allowed to play with other children, and his closest companion was his parents' Negro servant, a pro boxer from...
...Oscar. At Edwards, Stapp found himself in command of 2,000 ft. of rail track, the Gee-Whizz (a rocket sled built by Northrop Aircraft, Inc.), a bare barracks that was supposed to serve as a lab, and seven hard-working Northrop employees. His mission: to determine human tolerance to deceleration so that adequate aircraft safety harnesses could be developed...
Proceeding cautiously, Stapp sent his sled on 32 rocket runs carrying a dummy passenger. At least one of these experiments gave him pause. When the sled's brakes grabbed, "Oscar Eight-Ball," the anthropomorphic 185-lb. dummy, lurched forward in obedience to Newton's second law of motion. He broke his harness, slammed through an inch-thick pine windshield as if it were tissue paper, and soared 710 ft. down the track...
...seekers. He was fanatically careful. No runs were permitted on Mondays or Fridays-a man with a weekend on his mind might not be completely reliable. Small sins, such as forgetting to wear a mouthpiece, drew mild but prompt punishment. Always, when a volunteer was being strapped in the sled, Colonel Stapp was on hand to make small talk, to mention something he wanted done later that day-"Routine talk to help make the man feel that everything was routine...
...June 1951, Colonel Stapp had done just about all he could with the Edwards sled and track. After a tour of duty at Wright Field, he moved in 1953 to New Mexico's Holloman Air Force Base, where he found no need for "moonlight requisitions." He got a comfortable clutter of laboratory buildings, sufficient equipment and a good staff. Now, the nine officers (including their chief, Stapp) attached to Holloman's Aero-Medical Field Laboratory hold 24 advanced scientific degrees among them...