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John Paul Stapp 46 Times the Force of Gravity. On Purpose.
John Paul Stapp was a U.S. Air Force flight surgeon. Pilots were dying in crashes that looked survivable, and experts believed the human body could not take more than 18 times the force of gravity. Stapp thought the seats and straps were failing, not the people. So he tested it on himself, on a rocket sled in the desert. He broke his wrist twice, broke ribs and lost fillings from his teeth, and every time he climbed back in.
On 10 December 1954, at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, he rode Sonic Wind No. 1. In five seconds he reached 1,017 km/h (632 mph). Then he stopped in about 1.4 seconds and took 46.2 g. The blood vessels in his eyes burst and he could not see for a while, but his sight came back. The newspapers called him the fastest man on Earth. He spent the rest of his life pushing for seat belts, in planes and in cars.
The facts behind this file
What the record shows
- On 10 December 1954 at Holloman Air Force Base, Stapp rode the rocket sled Sonic Wind No. 1 to 1,017 km/h (632 mph) and stopped in about 1.4 seconds: 46.2 g, the highest known acceleration a human has taken voluntarily.
- At the time, about 18 g was widely believed to be the human limit.
- Over his tests he broke his right wrist twice, broke ribs, lost fillings and had bleeding in his retinas that briefly took his sight.
- He described the stop as 'a sensation in the eyes, somewhat like the extraction of a molar without anesthetic'.
- He campaigned for seat belts in cars and founded the Stapp Car Crash Conference.
Legends, disputes & careful wording
- He did not invent the seat belt.
- The face photos in the episode are from a deceleration test in the NARA archive, not necessarily from the 46 g run.
Main sources
- U.S. Air Force history
- Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
- Wikipedia: John Stapp
Spotted a mistake or know a better source? Tell us.
Further reading
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Image & film credits
- Human Decelerator and Gee Whiz (National Museum of Health and Medicine, via Wikimedia Commons): CC BY 2.0.
- Wrist-fracture X-ray from the American X-ray Journal (1899), crashed RAF Typhoon (IWM MH 27462) and wrecked Vampire jet: public domain / no known restrictions (Wikimedia Commons). Stapp demonstrating the rocket sled, 1956 (NASA Glenn): public domain.
- Sonic Wind No. 1 photos (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, via DPLA/Wikimedia Commons): CC0.
- Other images are public domain (U.S. Air Force and National Archives photographs of Stapp and the rocket sleds). Video clips from Pexels. Sound effects: "Horror Scary Human Heartbeat Slow #03" by N0IZ (CC BY 4.0, Freesound via Openverse); wind, thunder and boom sounds CC0. Music and narration made for this video.
