Fancy hurling yourself into space and plummeting back to earth at 700mph?

Weird stuff

Written by Danny Penman

From where pilot Joseph Kittinger was standing at the limit of the earth's atmosphere, there was only the deep black of space above him merging into a vivid blue below.

Beneath his feet, the curvature of the Earth and the sands of New Mexico were clearly visible. The Sun burnt brightly, far more brilliantly than it appeared from the ground.

Looking up through the glass visor on his spacesuit, Kittinger could see only the huge, fragile, gossamer-thin silver balloon towering 200ft over his tiny gondola.

This helium-filled balloon, Excelsior, had taken him to the edge of space, bathed in solar ultraviolet radiation and in temperatures of -70C.

The air pressure was lower than that on the surface of Mars - essentially a vacuum.

At that height, there was no wind, no sound ... nothing.

And then Kittinger took a last look at the tiny gondola and did something unthinkable: he jumped.

From an altitude of 102,800ft, or 20 miles (more than three times the cruising altitude of a commercial airliner or the height of Mount Everest), Kittinger plunged into the void, attaining speeds of more than 700mph as he hurtled towards the earth.

Despite breaking a seal on his spacesuit, he survived, landing gently by parachute 13 minutes and 45 seconds later.

That extraordinary jump on August 16, 1960, broke the record for the highest parachute jump which stands to this day, a daredevil achievement that makes the antics of today's bungee-istes and base-jumpers look like nursery games.

But it may not be a record which stands for much longer.

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In New Scientist magazine this week, a bizarre project has been revealed which, if it comes to fruition, will not only see Kittinger's extraordinary and little-known record smashed, but will open up near-space to a new breed of extreme sportsmen and women - people keen to get the ultimate kick by jumping not from 20, but from 30 or even 60 miles above the Earth.

Led by a consortium of extreme sports enthusiasts and entrepreneurs, the project envisages a small unmanned rocket delivering a human cargo to the edge of the earth's atmosphere - a living cargo which will then leap into the void equipped with nothing but a spacesuit and a parachute.

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