The Highest Parachutist

Some months ago, we came across this photo on BldgBlog and were reminded of the story of Joe Kittinger, unheralded U.S. Air Force pilot and Hero of the Athanasius Kircher Society. On August 16, 1960, Kittinger was lifted 31,333 meters into the sky in a pressurized balloon. At the end of his three-hour ascent, at the edge of space, looking out across the arc of Earth, he opened the capsule and jumped into the vanishingly thin air. During his 26 km freefall, which lasted four and a half minutes, he accelerated to 990 km/hr, becoming both the first man to touch outer space and the first to break the sound barrier outside of an aircraft. Fortunately for those of us who will never get to have such an exotic experience ourselves, he brought a camera with him:
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