Physiologically and psychologically, however, it starts only 12 miles up, where survival requires elaborate protection against an actual space environment.

Īerodynamically, space begins about 120 miles from earth. But here in the eerie silence of space, I knew that my life depended entirely upon my equipment, my own actions, and the presence of God. Doctors stood just a few feet away, watching through a porthole for any sign of malfunction. In our altitude-chamber flights at the laboratory, I always knew that if something went wrong, the chamber pressure could be increased immediately, returning me to safety. If either should break, unconsciousness would come in 10 or 12 seconds, and death within two minutes. For about an hour-as the balloon rose from 50,000 to 102,800 feet above sea level-I had been exposed to an environment requiring the protection of a pressure suit and helmet, and the fear of their failure had always been present. I was ready to go, for more reasons than one. Marvin Feldstein, one of our project's two doctors, from ground control at Holloman Air Force Base: 'Three minutes till jump, Joe.' In my earphones crackled the voice of Capt. Sunlight burned in on me under the edge of an aluminized antiglare curtain and through the gondola's open door. Sitting in my gondola, which gently twisted with the balloon's slow turnings, I had begun to sweat lightly, though the temperature read 36° below zero Fahrenheit. More than 18 1/2 miles below lay the cloud-hidden New Mexico desert to which I shortly would parachute. Overhead my onion-shaped balloon spread its 200-foot diameter against a black daytime sky. (Note: National Geographic News will broadcast live video of Felix Baumgartner's jump, followed in November by Space Dive, a National Geographic Channel documentary.)

Here, Kittinger offers a personal account of his record-setting skydive, originally published in the December 1960 issue of National Geographic magazine. Air Force pilot Joseph Kittinger accomplished nearly the same thing. This October sky diver Felix Baumgartner is set to step out of a pressurized, Apollo-like capsule and free-fall 23 miles (37 kilometers) from the edge of space-the culmination of the Red Bull Stratos project.

Stratosphere freefall