How do you stop a 1,000-mph car? With the world's strongest brakes

The British-based Bloodhound SSC team has been working for years on the ultimate land-speed record car — a jet-and-rocket powered beast that will in theory produce 187,000 hp en route to hitting 1,000 mph, or 240 mph more than the current record set in 1997. And as hard as it is to go that fast, the Bloodhound SSC also has to stop, forcing the team to build what may be the strongest brakes ever devised.

The Bloodhound will use air brakes and parachutes to get down to 160 mph, but needs mechanical brakes to handle the rest of the stop from there. For the run across a South African desert set for 2016, the Bloodhound has been built with custom steel wheels that will be spinning at 10,000 rpm when the car's at speed. And like the wheels on a Pinewood derby car, they're designed for minimal traction, as if the car's running on a slick road.

That means the brakes have to slow the car without locking the wheels and while surviving a huge buildup of heat from friction. (The brakes from a fighter jet didn't survive half-speed testing.) This isn't technology that's useful much beyond a 1,000-mph car, but the Bloodhound team has made their project as much about demonstrating the powers of engineering as going fast. And how do we know what's possible until we try?