In the 60's or 70's there was a US test pilot that did a similar thing - I
saw footage on some PBS show.
Something went wrong & he almost couldn't get out of the enclosure beneath
the balloon, but he eventually did it.
The footage of him plunging out the door with the surface of the Earth as
background is phenomonal.
I'll look for a link...
A timeline
http://www.gasballooning.org/Ballooning%20Milestones.htm
"1960 -- Altitude Record and Highest Parachute Jump: Air Force Captain Joe
Kittinger jumps from a balloon at 102,800 feet on August 16th and sets a
world high altitude parachute jump (where he breaks the sound barrier with
his body) and freefall record that still stands today.
1961 -- Current Official Altitude Record Set: Commander Malcolm Ross and
Lieutenant Commander Victor A. Prather of the U.S. Navy ascend to 113,739.9
feet in 'Lee Lewis Memorial,' a polyethylene balloon. They land in the Gulf
of Mexico where, with his pressure suit filling with water, and unable to
stay afloat, Prather drowns. "
Some history
http://www.balloonlife.com/publications/balloon_life/9709/racespace.htm
"Back in the 1950s and early 1960s, before the U.S. space program sent
astronauts up in liquid-fuel rockets, a small group of daring, brilliant men
made the first exploratory flights into the upper stratosphere to the edge
of outer space. They made the flights suspended beneath plastic balloons.
They saw things no one had ever seen, and they experienced conditions no one
was sure they could survive. Reaching the edge of space was not designed as
pre-rocket space exploration. These projects were looking for safe ways to
return pilots of jet aircraft back to earth should they have to bail out
above 40,000 feet.
Captain Joe Kittinger would make five high altitude flights, Lt. Col. David
Simons stayed aloft for a full day and night in a primitive pressurized
capsule to become one of the first to see the curvature of the earth."
mike
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rodent of Unusual Size [mailto:Ken.Coar@Golux.Com]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2001 4:24 AM
> To: Internet Coars; John & Deborah Carl; Sandip Sengupta;
> Lost-Archivists@Golux.Com; Flatware or Road Kill?
> Subject: [Fwd: Outer Space Skydive Planned]
>
>
> It is somehow reassuring that the benevolent insanity gene
> has not yet gone from the race.. :-) If he does not make
> it, I think he is a clear Darwin Award candidate.
> --
> #ken P-)}
>
> Ken Coar <http://Golux.Com/coar/>
> Apache Software Foundation <http://www.apache.org/>
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