Joe Kittinger - The man who fell from Space

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On August 16th, 1960, USAF Capt Joe Kittinger set a world record for the highest ever parachute jump (102,800 feet), the longest time ever in free-fall (4 mins 36 secs), the highest speed ever attained by any person in free-fall (614mph or 988kmh), and the lowest temperature ever endured by a person parachuting (-94°F or -70°C).

The jump was the third and last of three high-altitude test jumps codenamed Project Excelsior, to test if pilots who ejected at stratospheric levels could survive their return to Earth (wearing a pressure suit).

Joe Kittinger is still alive today, he is 94, and his high altitude jump record was not broken until 2012. I reckon you'd need some nerve to jump off that little gondola at that incredible height.

 

Joe also went on to operate as a fighter pilot in Vietnam, where he shot down a North Vietnamese MiG-21, before being shot down himself, and then spending 11 mths as a POW of the North Vietnamese.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kittinger