Day 18 - Project Excelsior
This is one of the reasons I love wikipedia so much. I ran across a reference to Project Excelsior and went to look it up.
This dude, Captain Kittinger in the picture above:
- Ascended to an altitude of 102,800 feet in a open gondola helium balloon.
- Leaped out and free-fell 85,300 feet (16.1 miles!) in 4 minutes and 36 seconds, at one point reaching a speed of 714 miles per hour before deploying the main chute at 17,500 feet.
- Total time from stepping off, and touching the ground was 13 minutes 45 seconds.
I can’t imagine a better way to spend 14 minutes of my life…
Also check out this video on YouTube. Its so surreal and trippy. Kittinger steps off the edge into the void an then there are intercuts of chaotic footage of earth spinning around wildly and the almost serene footage of him falling, falling for an eternity in the dark cold space. Then once he passes through the cloud cover, the sun is shining, the sea beckons below and everything sees so bright and life-affirming.
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3 Responses to “Day 18 - Project Excelsior”
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it sucks that i cant watch the video from here as the internet access is madly slow… but then i could imagine myself free-falling going full steam at over 700 mph.. id be feeling helpless but to be patient and let the chutes and gravity do the work for me…
btw, yesterday, ive found many hobbit-like smooth boulders sprouting out about 30 km east from tana. this area looks like it has a great potential to be the bouldering mecca. but i have to check them out soon… hope the preparation for bishop is going smooth as planned…
Well, this is an interesting blog, but I am still trying to figure out what its about
oh dont bother. its just a whole lot of nothing.