Word: sleds
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...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...
...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...
...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...
...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...
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...