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The Surprising History of Scientific Ballooning in 11 Missions

The Surprising History of Scientific Ballooning in 11 Missions

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·March 29, 2025
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MrMcCall

[ETA: Oops, the article is for "Scientific Ballooning". My bad. It's still a great balloon story.]

I can't believe they don't have Joseph Kittinger[1], who piloted the balloon that allowed him to parachute from the edge of space at 102kft, the first man to fully witness the curvature of the Earth, becoming the first man to fully witness the curvature of the Earth. That record stood until just a few years ago when Red Bull sponsored some guy to break it.

The original film is excellent. If you get the right documentary you can see him smoking a cigarette and giving his buddies double birds after he lands.

He should've aborted the jump because he had a hole in the arm of his flight suit, but he did what military aviators do, didn't tell anyone, and jumped anyway. He said while falling in space the couldn't tell how fast he was going because there was no friction yet. Only when he looked up did he realize that he was plummeting at very, very high speed.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kittinger