Added 1 new A* page:August 16th, 1960: USAF pilot Joseph Kittinger steps off his gondola at an altitude of over 100,000 feet (19 miles / 31 km) to begin what is still the longest, fastest skydive in human history:
image by US Air Force (source)
This was Kittinger's third, final, and highest extreme altitude jump as part of the Air Force's Project Excelsior. He made the first two jumps--after floating up in a helium balloon gondola--from about 75,000 feet; in the first, the stabilizer parachute deployed prematurely, leaving Kittinger helpless to stop himself from going into a 120 rpm spin; he experienced forces up to 22 G at his extremities, and blacked out--he was saved by the automatic deployment device on his main parachute, which kicked in when he'd fallen to an altitude of 10,000 feet.
In his record-setting third jump, in temperatures as low as -94 F (-70 C), the thin atmosphere at that higher altitude allowed him to accelerate to 614 mph (988 km/h) in free fall--about 9/10ths the speed of sound in those conditions. The pressurization in his right glove had failed as he ascended, and his hand swelled up to twice its normal size. Fortunately, his speedy fall got him safely back to the ground in just four minutes and 36 seconds.
To put the 19 mile / 31 km altitude in perspective, the next year, cosmonaut Gagarin reached an altitude of 327 km during his orbit of the Earth in Vostok 1, which is considered the first human spaceflight.
Kittinger, who is still living, would go on to three tours of duty as a combat pilot in Vietnam; after being shot down near the end of his third tour, he survived torture and 11 months of captivity in the "Hanoi Hilton" prison, taking command among the prisoners, as he was the senior ranking officer of those captured in the past three years; he was promoted to colonel upon his release. Retiring from the Air Force in '78, he went into civilian ballooning, setting distance records in two balloon class sizes--one still stands, and it also happens to have been the first solo crossing of the Atlantic by balloon. Now living in the Orlando area, he is still active as an aviation consultant "and touring barnstormer"!
In the Tumblr post where I first found out about his skydiving exploits, there's a link to a Discovery channel segment showing actual footage from his 100,000 foot leap.
And although Kittinger's 1960 dive still holds the records for highest, longest, and fastest skydive, it isn't as though nobody's been trying to beat it: these guys have been trying in recent years, for instance.
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Two other interesting items that drifted across my screen today:
- A computer glitch delayed the departure of an unmanned cargo ship from the International Space Station; the thing I thought was interesting here was that the computer controlling the deployment was a laptop (the glitch was that it was apparently not properly connected to the station's jack or whatever, so the commands didn't go through)--I guess in just about every space station interior photo you see there are laptops everywhere, but it hadn't quite connected in my head that they'd even use them for stuff like controlling space vessels.
- Net Index by Ookla shows the accumulated results of "millions" of internet speed tests from around the globe, and compiles them into a bunch of charts showing which countries have the best internet speeds, prices, and so forth. The US has been dropping like a rock in these categories; we're 34th in download speed, for instance, right behind Mongolia, Estonia, and Liechtenstein; the (warning: auto-playing video with sound) article where I first found out about this goes into how instead of competing and improving out national internet structure, the major service providers in the States have basically conspired to keep raising prices, without significantly improving performance. ... Maybe we'll be saved by a predatory provider from France or Hong Kong or something.
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