In 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA)—which was absorbed by NASA in 1958—conducted an experiment to find out how extremely high winds would affect a human passenger. Rather than test high-speed winds on a synthetic material, like we do today with ballistics testing, NACA did things the old fashioned way. A test pilot volunteered as a subject in the recently built 8-Foot High Speed Tunnel at what is now Langley Research Center. The test pilot was subjected to 457 mph winds. The experiment was conducted as the military became more interested in high-speed aeronautics for jet development, and it turns out the human face is pretty robust. For some perspective, a Category 5 hurricane, the most powerful on the Saffir-Simpson scale, has sustained winds of 157 mph or higher with gusts reaching around 200 mph. That's fast enough to virtually guarantee roof failure and cause complete building failure on many industrial buildings. Although these types of tests are no ...