Joseph Kittinger’s famous high-altitude jump was not designed primarily as a record stunt. Project Excelsior tested whether aircrew could escape safely from aircraft operating at altitudes where low pressure, cold and uncontrolled body spin could be fatal.
Kittinger had already participated in Project Manhigh, using balloons to study human performance in a near-space environment. Those flights helped build experience with pressure suits, oxygen systems and high-altitude physiology.
Project Excelsior developed a multi-stage parachute system including a stabilizing drogue intended to prevent the jumper from entering a dangerous flat spin during long free fall.
On August 16, 1960, Kittinger ascended over New Mexico in an open balloon gondola to 102,800 feet. He stepped out wearing a pressure suit and life-support equipment.
The Air Force Museum records a free fall of roughly four minutes and 37 seconds and a peak speed of about 614 mph before the main parachute phase brought him to the ground.
The jump set records that lasted for decades, but the operational purpose remained pilot survival. Research applied to emergency escape from very high-altitude aircraft and contributed knowledge relevant to the early space era.
Kittinger later served in Vietnam, was shot down and became a prisoner of war. He also continued ballooning and later advised Felix Baumgartner’s Red Bull Stratos jump.
For TransitSatellite, the jump should be represented as a vertical profile from balloon ascent through free fall and parachute descent, not as an ordinary horizontal travel route.