Retired US Air Force colonel Joseph Kittinger, whose 1960 parachute jump from 31.3km above the Earth stood as a world record for more than 50 years, died in Florida on Friday. He was 94.
His death was announced by former US representative John Mica and other friends. The cause was lung cancer.
Kittinger, then an air force captain and pilot, gained worldwide fame when he completed three jumps over 10 months from a gondola that was hoisted into the stratosphere by large helium balloons. Project Excelsior was aimed at helping design ejection systems for military pilots flying high-altitude missions.
Photo: AP
Wearing a pressure suit and 27kg of equipment, Kittinger almost died during the project’s first jump in November 1959 when his gear malfunctioned after he jumped from 23km. He lost consciousness as he went into a spin that was 22 times the force of gravity. He was saved when his automatic chute opened.
Four weeks later, Kittinger made his second jump from just more than 22km above the surface. This time, there were no problems.
Kittinger’s record jump came on Aug. 16, 1960, in the New Mexico desert. His pressure suit malfunctioned as he rose, failing to seal off his right hand, which swelled to twice normal size before he jumped from 31.3km above the surface.
Free falling in the thin atmosphere, the Tampa native exceeded 965kph before the gradually thickening air slowed his fall to about 241kph when his parachute deployed at 5.5km above the Earth.
“There’s no way you can visualize the speed,” Kittinger told Florida Trend magazine in 2011. “There’s nothing you can see to see how fast you’re going. You have no depth perception. If you’re in a car driving down the road and you close your eyes, you have no idea what your speed is. It’s the same thing if you’re free falling from space... You know you are going very fast, but you don’t feel it. You don’t have a 614mph [988kph] wind blowing on you. I could only hear myself breathing in the helmet.”
His record stood until 2012, when Austrian Felix Baumgartner jumped from 38.6km above the New Mexico desert, reaching the supersonic speed of 1,360kph. Kittinger served as an adviser.
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