The First Man In Space... Skydiving Down To Earth

Matt sends this cool video and asks "How the hell is it I never heard of this guy?"

I never heard of him either.

So, in 1960, this cat ascends to 30km above the earth in a balloon and.... jumps. He accelerates to 900 mph (I guess terminal velocity's a lot higher when the air is thin). He actually broke the sound barrier, without a vehicle.

He was testing to see if high-g acceleration would kill him, by the way. It didn't, but he didn't know that when he agreed to try it.

In related space news, Dick Cheney has offered his schlong as the space-elevator Instapundit and Arthur C. Clarke are always going on about (and on, and on, and on about).

His dork is made up entirely of "composite-carbon nano-tubes thirty times stronger than titanium," enabling it to reach 100 miles into the atmosphere without buckling under its own stupendous weight. NASA engineers call it "a breakthrough."

Lynne Cheney just calls it "a damnable nightmare."

posted by Ace at 02:41 AM

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