Basic Research

Two husky football players suited up in the University of Colorado's field house at Boulder one day last week, taped on special shoulder pads equipped with accelerometers, and then charged furiously into each other in the cause of science.

The impact was thunderous, but no more so than thousands of other collisions that occur on the nation's gridirons every fall weekend. But astonishingly enough, the players recorded a reading of 50 g.--well over twice the amount most people think a human can tolerate.

The gimmick was that man can endure momentarily many more g. than he can for even a few seconds. Severe though the players' jolt was, it lasted only 5/1000 of a second. Sponsors of the experiment were engineers from the Stanley Aviation Corp., which is building the escape capsule for the Air Force's new mach 2 bomber, the B58 Hustler. In these capsules the pilot will be fired out of the plane by an explosive charge, will get another jolt when the capsule hits the outside air traveling at supersonic speeds.

From such tests as these and others, Stanley engineers hope to learn just how much of a jar a human can endure, and for how long. Says Expert Galen A. Holcomb: "We don't want to know how to break a man's neck. We just want to know the point before breaking."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.