At 63,000 feet of altitude, a human being’s blood will boil. At
90,000 feet, the atmospheric temperature plummets to minus-90
degrees Fahrenheit. These facts did not deter Joe Kittinger from
accepting a challenge: to ride a balloon to 100,000 feet and
then parachute back down to earth. In doing so, he advanced
safety technology for fighter pilots and set a record for the
highest freefall in history. The story of Kittinger’s leap
remains as sensational today as it was in its time. In the pre-
dawn hours of August 16, 1960, Captain Kittinger of the U.S. Air
Force clambered into a contraption resembling a tin can that
rested on the bed of a flatbed truck parked in the desert of New
Mexico. A cadre of crew members boosted him onto the platform
since he was encumbered by the bulk of a pressurized suit—one
designed to prevent his blood from boiling when he rose into the
stratosphere. The effect of low atmospheric pressure on the
human body would become painfully evident to Kittinger later in
the flight, when his pre