Which features the awe inspiring footage of Joseph Kittinger’s record setting 1960 jump from 31.3 kilometers up. He fell for 4 minutes and 36 seconds reaching a maximum speed of 988 km/h (!!!!) before opening his parachute at 5,500 m. He set records (that stand to this day, and will quite possibly never be broken) for highest balloon ascent, highest parachute jump, longest drogue-fall (4 min), and fastest speed by a human through the atmosphere. If there is a definition for awesome, that’s it.
And the best part is that a year before he made a jump from 23.2 km where an equipment malfunction caused him to lose consciousness, but he was saved by the automatic parachute (he went into a flat spin at a rotational velocity of 120 rpm; the g-force at his extremities was calculated to be over 22 times that of gravity, setting another record). He recovered and was raring to go back at it.
If that doesn’t qualify as being a stud, I don’t know what does. Yeah, I’m doing quite possibly one of the most dangerous things imaginable, no one has ever done this before, I almost get killed doing it, and I can’t wait to get back at it. Wow. But then again, for that view, I think I can understand the motivation.
Oh and the reason for those tests was to see if astronauts could bail out of their capsules if need be.
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