2. Air Force medical doctor volunteered to be used as “Human Rocket” in order to study the human body’s tolerance to Aircraft Crash Forces.
There’s a good chance that you know him as the “human rocket” or the “the fastest man on earth.” Colonel John Paul Stapp was an American career U.S. Air Force officer, flight surgeon, physician, biophysicist, and pioneer in studying the effects of acceleration and deceleration forces on humans who made history for his bold self-experiments. Stapp accelerated in 5 seconds from a standstill to 632 miles an hour, and then decelerated to a dead stop in 1.4 seconds, subjecting him to pressures 40 times the pull of gravity. From 1947 to 1955, he participated in 28 more such experiments and broke all kinds of land and deceleration records.
These tests investigated the effects of acceleration, G-force, deceleration, and wind blast on humans. Stapp suffered broken bones and retinal hemorrhages, but suffered no permanent damage. Stapp also became an early advocate of seatbelts and shoulder harnesses in cars. He created an automobile test facility and conducted the first-ever crash tests with dummies; tests that are still used for crash safety ratings. Despite taking part in so many dangerous tests, Stapp died peacefully at his home in Alamogordo, New Mexico, at the age of 89.