You've heard of skydiving, right? Well, how about space-jumping. I have done the first thing, and it was from 13,000 feet or so.
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Today In 1960, US Air Force Command Pilot Joseph Kittinger took skydiving to a whole different level when he did a solo jump from 31.3 km above the earth's surface (102,800 feet.)
It was called "The Highest Step" and everything went fine. Why did he do this? Well, the objective was to research possible ejection systems for high-flying planes despite the fact that there were not (and still aren't) any planes that were capable of flying to such a distance. That's all fine and dandy but i think a lot of it was trill-seeking.
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he was fine
There are a lot of issues from jumping at that height. For one thing, it is 90 degrees below zero (F) and just before you get to that point it is exceptionally hot. If you enter a spin, the speed at which your body will continue to do so will shake your guts through your skin.... so yeah, this dude is brave AF.
It took him a full 90 minutes to arrive at that altitude in his 200-foot tall helium-filled balloon.
It's only 3 minutes long, you should have a look.
His record-setting jump stood for a long time and was beaten finally in 2012 by Felix Baumgartner who jumped from a whopping 39km.
The guy that just recently did it is the first thing I thought of when I saw this post. I didn't realize he was that much higher than this one. Thanks for giving those distances. All of that is definitely a pass for me. It has to be a thrill being able to look down into thin air and see the curvature of the Earth.
very thin air. In the video he explains about how after he jumped he had to turn around to look at the balloon because there was no sensation of movement due to the near complete lack of atmosphere.
Not for people with fear of height or very shortsighted!! The heart must have stopped for a few seconds! The fear factor would be sky high!
Nay! I don’t want to try this! My stomach will just collapse!
He had a whole hour and a half to think about how he is about to jump from a balloon in space...he is definitely a better man than me lol
yeah, i know. not to mention that once he got past the clouds it started to get really cold, then really hot, then really cold again and he pressure suite failed in one of the arms.
It is valued more the jump in the year 1960, did not sing with the security measures of the present time.