A fire broke out in the Rault Center in downtown New Orleans on November 29, 1972. Five women trapped in a beauty salon on the 15th floor had to choose between staying in the burning building and leaping as firefighters battled to contain the blaze and television cameras rolled.
They jumped, one by one, and attempted to climb onto a six-story building next door. Five of the women passed away.
A 46-year-old engineer and a fellow New Orleanian had been experimenting with a potential solution at the time. John T. Scurlock took action as a result of the tragedy.
He wanted to create an inflatable cushion that would allow skeptarians to land safely while they were plunging great heights. However, he needed his sons’ assistance in order to accomplish it.
First, he persuaded them to lift 45 kg (100 kg) of rolled vinyl from the top of his office building onto the cushion he had created below. John was able to calculate the weight the cushion could withstand at various speeds thanks to the accelerometer.
After he was certain that the area was safe, he proceeded to having his sons jump off the roof.
We were launching into a large airbag when we were 10, 12, and 14 years old. It was a lot of fun, 66-year-old Jeff Scurlock recalls.
“Space pillow”
The safety air cushion, a huge, inflatable pad still used by fire brigades from New York to Tokyo to save people from , fires, and deaths by suicide, was patented the following year.
Not his first invention, though. In fact, his life-saving inflatable was inspired by his predecessor, the omnipresent fair game known by numerous names, including the bouncy castle, moon bounce, bounce house, or space walk, depending on the location.
It was known as the “space pillow” in the Scurlock residence.
John began working at a NASA facility in New Orleans a year after filing a patent for the components that would make up the space pillow. The Soviets had won the space race with the launch of the world’s first satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1961, and NASA had opened its doors three years prior.
By 1960, the US space agency had developed an interest in creating a crewed, inflatable space station, which was widely accepted as the required first step toward the moon.
Large, rigid space stations would require frequent rocket launches to transport the components, but plastic inflatables were deemed lightweight, strong, and portable. A single booster could launch an inflatable space station into space once it is in orbit. (In 2016 a meteorite-resistant inflatable space module was sent to the International Space Station, and NASA engineers are attempting to construct a semi-permanent moon habitat out of inflatables.)
When John would sketch designs for and sew his proto-space pillow using a commercial sewing machine he had set up in a pit in his garage to help him carry the heavy vinyl material as he worked, this innovation persisted even in his free time.
Soon after he made a homemade space pillow for his young sons to play in the backyard, it quickly received a lot of positive feedback from the neighborhood kids.
Because we had one in our backyard for a long time, Jeff says, “we were very popular kids then.” “The entire neighborhood would jump on it,” he said.
Jeff claims his mother, Francis, came up with the idea to market the inflatable after realizing how popular the kids were with it. John eventually quit his job to concentrate on the “space pillow” full-time.
inflatable solutions
The invention was first introduced at trade shows around the nation in 1968. However, there were significant safety risks. Safety-wise, John’s grandson, Mials, 35, describes it as a “horrible nightmare.” There was no “no support, no netting, or way to keep you on it,” the statement read.
The carnival was “sued out of existence,” according to Mials, when a carnival worker died and broke his neck.
The design needed protection from the elements because it was no longer just a small backyard project.
The space pillow expanded columns, cushioning the walls, netting around the sides, and a roof, which made it much safer. The family founded a new business called Space Walk Inflatables in Kenner, Louisiana, in 1972, the year the last person to walk on the moon.
Due to the popularity of rentals, the global bounce house market is currently worth $4 billion.
However, John turned his attention to resolving issues with heavy-duty inflatables as his invention gained popularity.
According to Dr. Benjamin Gorissen, a professor of inflatable mechanics at KE Leuven in Belgium, inflatable engineering is surprisingly complex and necessitates answering mathematical questions to convert a 2D fabric to a 3D shape.
John was a “man who could do the math,” according to Mials, and he loved numbers. He filed patents for various structures, including one that looks like an inside human heart and is welds underwater for offshore oil platforms.
He’d be sketching out a solution in his office, according to Mials, “whatever news article would happen.”
Jeff recalls his father working on an invention that might help bring sunken submarines back to life after reading about them in a newspaper.
He “never really stopped working,” according to Jeff up until John’s passing in 2008, according to Jeff. His most recent creation in his 80s was an air sculpture that covered a 2. 8 square meter (30 square feet) area.
According to Jeff and Mials, who currently run the company, John did not intend to establish a business empire. The Scurlocks continue to manufacture safety air cushions, which have a more complex structure, despite keeping their main line of business in bouncy castles. The product’s certification for 20 storeys, or 200 feet and bsp, extends to (60 meters).
The safety air cushion has saved thousands of lives all over the world since its creation, but it all started with a dedicated early pioneer urging his children to jump off the roof.
Source: Aljazeera
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