Free Republic

Colonel Joe Kittinger Someone once defined military veterans as those who recognize that love of God, fellow man, and country is the willingness to write a blank check, payable for an amount up to the last full measure of devotion: life itself. On August 16, 1960, Colonel Joe Kittinger proved his willingness to write such a check by ascending in a helium balloon to an altitude of 102,800 feet — almost twenty miles.

Col. Joe Kittinger may be one of the most interesting people alive today. Not only did he set the record for the highest and longest skydive in history in 1960, but the 85-year-old retired Air Force colonel was also the first person ever to observe the curvature of the Earth from the edge of outer space, and the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in a helium balloon. Kittinger sat down with “Politics Confidential” to discuss his life’s many adventures and what it was like to help break his own skydiving record in 2012 as part of...

No human being has fallen farther than Joe Kittinger, but people keep trying. On Aug. 16, 1960, the U.S. Air Force test pilot floated in his 20-story-tall helium balloon to the edge of space, more than 19 miles up, higher than any man had ever gone. Clad in a space suit, he stood at the edge of his open-air gondola and said to himself: "Lord, take care of me now." Then he jumped. He quickly accelerated to 714 miles an hour -- becoming the first person to break the sound barrier without a vehicle -- before a small parachute opened...