Odd that the article never mentions that on August 16, 1960 Joe Kittenger hit 720 mph while descending, thereby breaking the sound barrier.
On August 16, 1960, Kittinger made his most famous free-fall. In this flight, he made it up to an altitude of 102,800 feet, breaking a previous record made by David Simons during Project Man High. He stayed at this altitude for about 12 minutes, which must have been very unpleasant – not only was it as cold as 94 minus Fahrenheit, but he had a severe pain in his right hand from a malfunctioning pressurized glove. Then, he jumped. He fell for almost five minutes before reaching a safe altitude to open his main parachutes and float down to the ground. In this time, he went as fast as 614 MPH – not quite breaking the sound barrier, as some claimed he had, but still achieving the fastest speed by man through the atmosphere. Kittinger’s high-flying career was not over after this record-breaking fall. In 1962, as a part of Project Stargazer, he spent over eighteen hours at an altitude of 82,200 feet, performing more research into the affects of the atmosphere on telescopes and the long-term effects of high-altitude environments on the human body. This was to be his last high-altitude balloon flight. Later on in life, Kittinger went on to fly in the Vietnam war, performing 483 missions before being shot down and held as a prisoner of war for almost a year. After he came back to the U.S., he proceeded to balloon across the country and entered into many ballooning contests. In 1983 he set a record for flying a balloon from Las Vegas to New York in under 72 hours. A year later became the first man to fly across the Atlantic Ocean in a balloon, setting a record for the longest solo balloon flight at 83 hours and 40 minutes. To this day, Kittinger is still involved with flight as an aviation consultant and sometimes barnstormer.
