Word: stapp
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Meet the Future. In 1943, when he began his duty as an intern at St. Mary's Hospital in Duluth, life took on a new dimension for Dr. Stapp. "I had only seen pure scientists before, the prima donnas in universities working in their nit-picking ways at academic doodlings to impress each other. Now for the first time I saw science and men of science working as a team, bringing everything to bear-the enormous facilities of the hospital, their own talents and devotion-to the saving of human life...
...Stapp went on active duty as a first lieutenant in the medical corps, by V-J day had progressed, via half a dozen U.S. bases, to Randolph Field, Texas, known affectionately to those who served there as the "Worst Point of the Air." At Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., in one day during the first flush of demobilization, Dr. Stapp examined the eyes, ears, noses and throats of 600 men-"a nightmare relieved only by the thought that I might have been a proctologist...
...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...
...took Stapp a few months of spectacular scrounging and "moonlight requisitioning" to put together the kind of test setup he required. The lab needed water, so he "borrowed" 4,400 ft. of pipe, talked some civilian workers into doing the necessary welding, and paid them off with free medical care for their families. (Throughout his four busy years at Edwards, Stapp found time to give medical care to servicemen's families and civilian workers, often made more than half a dozen night calls, never accepted a cent from what he called "my curbstone clinic...
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...