Used FAQs

What's the highest parachute jump ever made?

August 16th, 2007

Currently this record* is 102,800 feet (around 20 miles). These days it seems there’s always a few teams preparing to beat the record. So keep googling around the internet to see if any of them finally beat it. One day, somebody will. Anyway…

This successful 102,800 foot Air Force test jump was made, from a special high altitude balloon, on August 16, 1960 by Capt. Joseph Kittenger. He was in freefall** for nearly five minutes. Because of the extreme altitudes involved, Joe had to wear an astronaut-style pressure-suit. Keep in mind: the world’s first human astronaut, Yuri Gargarin, had not yet flown into space. Only military test pilots had exceeded 100,000 feet of altitude in experimental rocket aircraft. Joe was making a parachute jump from the edge of space.

Also, at those altitudes the air was so thin, and the resultant aerodynamic drag so small, that Joe approached the speed of sound in freefall (he was clocked at around 614mph — there is some debate that he might have even surpassed the speed of sound. Last I checked, there seems to be wide-spread popular assumption that he did in fact go supersonic, but I don’t know the final scientific data on that claim). An automated camera in the balloon’s gondola took several photos of Joe falling away. One of those photos made the cover of Life magazine, and is truly spellbinding; he looks like an astronaut falling out of a spacecraft in earth orbit.

Source: www.fabulousrocketeers.com

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