Project Excelsior

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National Park Service White Sands U.S. Department of the Interior White Sands National Monument Project Excelsior he word excelsior means ever upward in English and is a Latin adjective for higher. In the late 1950’s and Tearly 1960’s Capt. Joseph Kittinger epitomized those definitions. On August 16, 1960 he travelled into Earth’s stratosphere and reached heights that few had been to. Project Excelsior was a series multi-stage parachute, had a small unassisted. Almost all of the of three high-altitude bailout drogue chute which deployed to records held for more than 50 years experiments. After World War II help stabilize the jumper. until they were broken by Felix the world entered the jet age and Baumgartner near Roswell, NM in pilots were able to fly higher and the On the first test at 76,400 feet, the 2012. fantasy of travel in outer space was drogue chute opened prematurely becoming a reality. Pilots attempting and wrapped around Kittinger’s —Mark Garnes, Student-Intern to bailout at the new altitudes neck sending him into a flat spin. He we were able to achieve through blacked out and was jerked awake technology faced two perils if they by his emergency chute at 10,000 ft. ejected: hypothermia and flat spin. Kittinger believed in the chute so he decided to do a second jump at If a pilot in the upper atmosphere 74,700 ft. and the second jump was deployed their chute too soon, successful. they could be exposed to low temperatures for an extended Finally, on August 16, 1960, Joseph period of time causing hypothermia. Kittinger rode an open gondola If they free fell to a lower height balloon to a height of 102, 800 ft. to deploy their chute, they ran the (roughly twenty miles) and jumped risk of going into a flat spin. A flat out. He free fell for more than four spin is when a Para-jumper loses minutes until he opened his chute control of their free fall and spins at a safe altitude. Almost fourteen out of control. During this spin minutes later he landed on the the jumper’s blood would rush to shores of Lake Lucero. By the their head and feet which could time he had landed he had set four be fatal. Project Excelsior, aimed USAF records; highest ascent in a at alleviating the problems of high balloon, longest jump, longest free altitude bailout by developing a fall, and the fastest speed reached multistage chute. The Beaupre by a human in the atmosphere The Balloon Originally written Fall/Winter 2014 Revised 03/28/2016.

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Spinoff 2015 Cover
Air Revitalization System Enables Excursions to the Stratosphere NASA Technology Now there’s a new story in the works that builds on the nation’s history with high-flying n order to test a parachute system for surviving high-altitude bailouts, from balloons and space travel, and it involves 1959 to 1960 the US Air Force commenced Project Excelsior. It required allowing others the opportunity to see the I Captain Joseph Kittinger to complete a series of jumps from a gondola teth- world from a view that only a select few, such as ered to a helium balloon that had carried him into the stratosphere. On August Kittinger, have ever been allowed to see. 16, 1960, Kittinger completed his most audacious leap from a height of 102,800 The first chapter began as one of NASA’s feet—until recently the highest altitude reached by man in an unpowered aircraft. iconic missions, the Space Shuttle Program, was After achieving a freefall velocity of 714 miles per hour, he landed safely back on coming to an end. The agency had set its sights New Mexico soil. on new horizons, such as sending humans to Kittinger’s risky skydive proved useful for not only pilots but also NASA astro- Mars and designing other spacecraft to explore nauts. Besides the parachute, Kittinger also wore a pressurized suit to withstand the deeper reaches of the solar system. Instead being above what’s known as the Armstrong limit. At approximately 62,000 feet, of using the shuttle to get to the International or roughly 12 miles above Earth’s surface, atmospheric pressure drops so low that Space Station (ISS), astronauts would hitch water boils at temperatures as low as the human body’s.
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