A Brief History of the Human Cannonball

It is easy to associate the idea of a human cannonball with a picture of a typical of daredevil-stuntman.

 The truth is in fact, far more surprising  The very first human to be shot into the sky was no other than a 14 year old girl named Zazel, in London in 1817. She used elastic bands to propel herself into space. Now, most human cannon-ballers use compressed air instead. Air is released into the cannon, pushing the platform up to an abrupt stop, hurtling the individual forward. The farther a person needs to fly, the more forceful the push, and faster the acceleration. Typically, a human cannonball experiences 9 G's at take-off, and 12 when landing. Surprisingly  it is not the force of leaving the cannon that is the most dangerous part, but the landing. Human Cannonballs are forced to decelerate at alarming rates. Most either use a net or water to absorb the impact and slow them down to a stopping point. Without this, they would be forced to decelerate from their high rate immediately on impact, proving fatal in almost all cases. Most of theses stuntman aim for the back third of the net, absorbing the forward energy and bouncing them backwards at a safe distance. Calibration of the net in relation to the cannon is another extremely dangerous part of the cannon-baller lifestyle. If the net is not placed correctly, it is likely the stuntman will never fly again. Evin Bale fatally met this mistake, calibrating the distance with the assistance of a test dummy. Little did he know, his dummy had been saturated with water, throwing the weight off. He made his final flight, missed the net, and died later that day. 

Its easy to see that many complex components make up the flight of the human cannonball, and we aim to uncover and de construct all of them. Stay tuned as we explore the physics behind the mystery of these daring men and women.

for more information visit:

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/arts/circus-arts/human-cannonball3.htm

http://www.physicscentral.com/explore/poster-cannonball.cfm

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/974/how-do-human-cannonballs-survive

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/gravity-forces.html