John Stapp

In 2012, 13 years after his death, Stapp was awarded the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers award. The award recognizes individuals for their significant role in the history of Air Force space and missile programs.

Stapp was an inveterate collector of aphorisms and adages, kept a logbook of such, and the practice spread to his entire working group. He published a collection of these in 1992. Stapp is credited with being the popularizer, as well as the author of the final form of the principle known as Murphy's law, "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."

In 1991, Stapp was awarded the National Medal of Technology, "for his research on the effects of mechanical force on living tissues leading to safety developments in crash protection technology".

In 1985, Stapp was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame for his work in aviation safety.

In 1979 Stapp was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame. The New Mexico Museum of Space History, which houses the International Space Hall of Fame, includes a John P. Stapp Air & Space Park which holds Sonic Wind No. 1, a rocket sled ridden by Stapp.

In 1973 Stapp was awarded the Franklin Institute's Elliott Cresson Medal.

In 1967, the Air Force loaned Stapp to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to conduct auto-safety research. He retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1970 with the rank of Colonel.

In 1957, he was presented with the Gorgas Medal from the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States (AMSUS).

By riding the decelerator sled, in his 29th and last ride at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, Stapp demonstrated that a human can withstand at least 46.2 g (in the forward position, with adequate harnessing). This is the highest known acceleration voluntarily encountered by a human, set on December 10, 1954. Stapp reached a speed of 632 mph (1,017 km/h), which broke the land speed record and made him the fastest man on Earth. Stapp believed that the tolerance of humans to acceleration had not yet been reached in tests. He believed it is much greater than thought possible.

By June 8, 1951, 74 human runs had been made on the decelerator, 19 with the subjects in the backward position, and 55 in the forward position. Stapp, one of the most frequent volunteers on the runs, sustained a fracture of his right wrist during the runs on two separate occasions, also broke ribs, lost fillings from his teeth and developed bleeding into his retinas that caused temporary vision loss; in one run he survived forces up to 38 g.

The first run on the rocket sled took place on 30 April 1947 with ballast. The sled ran off the tracks. The first human run took place the following December. Instrumentation on all the early runs was in the developmental stage, and it was not until August 1948 that it was adequate to begin recording. By August 1948, sixteen human runs had completed, all in the backward-facing position. Forward-facing runs started in August 1949. Most of the earlier tests ran to compare the standard Air Force harnesses with a series of modified harnesses. This was to determine which type gave the best protection to the pilot.

As early as 1945, service personnel realized the need for a comprehensive and controlled series of studies into the effects of deceleration on the human body. This led to fundamental concepts that could be applied to better safeguard aircraft occupants during a crash. The initial phase of the program, as set up by the Aero Medical Laboratory of the Wright Air Development Center, was to develop equipment and instrumentation. This was so aircraft crashes might be simulated, and to study the strength factors of seats and harnesses. Human tolerance to the deceleration encountered in simulated aircraft crashes could also be simulated.

Stapp entered the U.S. Army Air Forces on 5 October 1944 as a physician and qualified as a flight surgeon. On 10 August 1946, he was assigned to the Aero Medical Laboratory at Wright Field as a project officer and medical consultant in the Biophysics Branch and transferred to the U.S. Air Force when it became an independent service in September 1947. His first assignment included a series of flights testing various oxygen systems in unpressurized aircraft at 40,000 ft (12.2 km). One of the major problems with high-altitude flight was the danger of "the bends" or decompression sickness. Stapp's work resolved that problem as well as many others, which allowed the next generation of high-altitude aircraft and the HALO insertion techniques. He was assigned to the deceleration project in March 1947.

In 1931, Stapp received a bachelor's degree from Baylor University in Waco, an MA from Baylor in 1932, a PhD in Biophysics from the University of Texas at Austin in 1940, and an MD from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, in 1944. He interned for one year at St. Mary's Hospital in Duluth, Minnesota. Stapp was later awarded an honorary Doctor of Science from Baylor University.

Colonel John Paul Stapp (July 11, 1910 – November 13, 1999), M.D., Ph.D., was an American career U.S. Air Force officer, flight surgeon, physician, biophysicist, and pioneer in studying the effects of acceleration forces on humans. He was a colleague and contemporary of Chuck Yeager, and became known as "the fastest man on earth". His work on Project Manhigh pioneered many developments for the US space program.