--- title: See Fastest Man of Earth Replicate Bailing Out at 30,000 Ft. description: Watch an exclusive clip from the PBS documentary 'Space Men' canonical: https://time.com/4234265/stapp-clip-space-men/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-02-24T16:50:05.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T15:18:18.630Z article:section: History og:title: See Fastest Man of Earth Replicate Bailing Out at 30,000 Ft. og:description: Watch an exclusive clip from the PBS documentary 'Space Men' og:url: https://time.com/4234265/stapp-clip-space-men/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt971ff23ca058c53f/69887ec4cf40a84409c421a6/1101550912_400.jpg?branch=production&width=828&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Sep. 12, 1955 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: See Fastest Man of Earth Replicate Bailing Out at 30,000 Ft. twitter:description: Watch an exclusive clip from the PBS documentary 'Space Men' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt971ff23ca058c53f/69887ec4cf40a84409c421a6/1101550912_400.jpg?branch=production&width=828&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # See the 'Fastest Man on Earth' Simulate Bailing Out of a Space Ship at 30,000 Feet  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Feb 24, 2016 4:50 PM CUT  The Sep. 12, 1955, issue of TIME The Sep. 12, 1955, issue of TIMECover Credit: BORIS ARTZYBASHEFF  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Feb 24, 2016 4:50 PM CUT Think of early American astronauts, and a few names probably come to mind: Ed White, Neil Armstrong, John Glenn. But, as made clear by the new American Experience documentary _Space Men_—premiering on PBS on Mar. 1—those famous men stood on the metaphorical shoulders of the “pre-astronauts” who tested the skies first. Under the aegis of the Air Force, not NASA, they had risked their lives to see how high, how fast and how far the human body could go before collapsing. This exclusive clip features one of those men, Lt. Col. John Paul Stapp, an Air Force surgeon who had earned the nickname of “the fastest man on Earth.” Though many of his experiments were conducted on other men, his most risky tests were suited for only one subject: himself. Stapp attempted to replicate on Earth the force that would be felt by space pilot ejecting from his craft thousands of feet above the ground. To do so, he rode in a specially designed sled capable of going hundreds of miles per hour, slamming to a stop to see how his body reacted to the impact. As TIME wrote in its 1955 coverage of the mission, “the data \[such missions\] produce are urgently needed in an age when man is opening up dreamlike new frontiers of space and speed.” But how _would_ his body react? Watch to find out. **_Read the issue featured in the clip above, here in the TIME Vault:_** [The Fastest Man on Earth](http://time.com/vault/issue/1955-09-12/page/1/ "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4234265/stapp-clip-space-men/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4234265/stapp-clip-space-men/"},"headline":"See the 'Fastest Man on Earth' Simulate Bailing Out of a Space Ship at 30,000 Feet","datePublished":"2016-02-24T16:50:05.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T15:18:18.630Z","description":"Watch an exclusive clip from the PBS documentary Space Men","url":"https://time.com/4234265/stapp-clip-space-men/","keywords":["Space"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt971ff23ca058c53f/69887ec4cf40a84409c421a6/1101550912_400.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt971ff23ca058c53f/69887ec4cf40a84409c421a6/1101550912_400.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Sep. 12, 1955","caption":"Sep. 12, 1955","creditText":"Cover Credit: BORIS ARTZYBASHEFF","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/space/","name":"Space"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4234265/stapp-clip-space-men/","name":"See the 'Fastest Man on Earth' Simulate Bailing Out of a Space Ship at 30,000 Feet"}}]}] ```