Net Notables

It was Air Force test pilot Joe Kittinger. He was part of an Air Force project called Excelsior, which was set up to test the effects of space on humans. On August 16, 1960 he ascended to 102,800 feet in a high altitude balloon and jumped out. That’s right! He jumped out of the balloon from space with nothing but a pressurized suit and a drogue parachute (which are the kinds of parachutes used by planes!). Falling for over 13 miles at 614mph he broke the sound barrier — the first, and last, human to do so! And to this day he still holds the records for the highest altitude from which a human has jumped, the fastest speed by a human through the atmosphere, longest drogue-fall, and highest balloon ascent. And the whole experiment was filmed, as you can see from the clip below that shows some of the footage of this mind-boggling feat.

Now why didn’t I know this until just now? Kittinger responded in a recent interview with CBS news, “Remember, we didn’t have the PR that NASA had.” I’ll say!

Check out another clip here with more extensive footage.

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