NASA Abuses Crash Test Dummies In Ways You Can't Even Imagine, To Better Protect Human Lives

NASA¡¯s Langley Research Center this week published a video of the sort of testing that goes on over there. Spoiler alert, it involves a lot of crashes and a lot of fake bodies. Fun stuff.

Images courtesy: NASA

The video details the kind of horrific accidents Langley puts its crash-test dummies through in order to build safer spacecraft and aircraft for the humans that will ride them. The dummies provide key data about how bodies react to various crash situations, how they would be thrown, bend, or break.

The dummies are made to resemble human size and weight, between 48 kg to 1100 kg, and are outfitted with various sensors and instruments. These are then strapped into the seats of aeroplane and shuttle fuselage and dropped from heights. For instance, 10 dummies were dropped 14 feet in a series of simulated crashes in March 2017, as part of research into safety standards for aircraft.

NASA also regularly tests rocket crew capsules, which typically splash down into the Pacific with the aid of parachutes. Of course before that happens, dummies undergo a simulated version of that incident, to see what kind of added precautions would be necessary

All of these sacrifices by the dummies taken for granted go into making our air travel safer and, one day, perhaps our own space escapades. So, my empty-headed friends, we salute you.