I have a couple of video links for you.
Joseph Kittinger free falls from space.
A longer version, with a lot of really cool footage of the preparation and balloon ascent, but with a cheesy soundtrack.
This is my favorite story from US aerospace history. In 1960, as part of a set of tests designed to record the effects of high altitude on the human body, Air Force test pilot Joseph Kittinger rode a helium balloon to an altitude of 102,000 feet. (For reference, most commercial airplanes don’t get higher than about 40,000 ft.) That’s 20 miles up. Then, he jumped. He wanted to prove pilots and astronauts could bail out safely, using a special multi-stage parachute. This feat hasn’t gotten nearly the press as the Mercury 7 or the Apollo moon landing. In fact, not many people know about it at all. But I think Kittinger’s jump is mind-blowingly unreal. And it’s never been equaled, in almost 50 years.
I encountered the story through Craig Ryan’s book The Pre Astronauts and only found film clips of the jump later. But ooh, boy. The film is MIND BLOWING. He’s jumping. FROM SPACE. Falling at over 600 mph! He’s high enough to see the curvature of the Earth. And HE’S FALLING. According to Kittinger, he couldn’t feel himself falling. He had to look back at the balloon to realize he was moving away from it. The image of this tiny human body (captured by a remote camera in the gondola) falling against the backdrop of far distant clouds makes me catch my breath every time. The longer clip has a bit I hadn’t seen before: a little further into the fall (about the 5:18 mark), Kittinger pulls himself into a jackknife, to better control his freefall. There’s a test pilot for you.
As you might imagine, this went into my idea file, and I wrote a story, “This is the Highest Step in the World.” (It’s in an anthology called All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories.) I got the title from the sign placed on the door of Kittinger’s balloon gondola. You can see it in the longer video.
April 25, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Wow. Anyone who thinks that it’s sufficient to send unmanned probes into space and to the planets needs to watch that video (long version). We need to go there ourselves!
April 27, 2008 at 12:24 am
I read the National Geographic with that story in it. It was a few years old by the time I got to it, but it still grabbed my attention. The suit he wore for the stunt later inspired the design of the moon suits.
For extra space exploration fun look into the X-plane program. The X-15 went sub-orbital in it’s last few flights, and there was talk of making the late, lamented X-20 orbit capable.
As a matter of fact, there was once talk of taking a production model F-15, sealing it, adding heat protection, small booster rockets, retro-rockets for maneuvers and re-entry, and putting that into orbit.
Speaking of which, a story where Kitty and Ben are transported on an Aurora spycraft to a secret manned U. S. Airforce orbiting the Moon, so Kitty can go through an entire pregnancy as a wolf and so safely carry a child to nativity, could be fun.
April 27, 2008 at 8:27 am
That would be the most expensive damn pregnancy in the history of the universe.
April 27, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Or, figure out how to simulate a full moon for the time needed to bear the child.
Of course, your mention of magic by one caller is SB does raise possibilities, for Kitty and Co. have encountered working magic before.
(A Federal program to locate, recruit, and train dweomercrafters for example. Perhaps even basic dweomercrafter classes in high school to give young people some measure of control over their power. Kitty Norvilles’ world is changing, and those changes include much more than vampires and werewolves.)
May 1, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Hi Carrie, I think 40,000 feet is a little less than 8 miles.