Specially for our aeronuts may I present...
formatting link
Stick this on full screen and watch Joe Kittinger's 1960 balloon jump from
102 000 feet.
Some of it is from the balloon camera, some of it is from his helmet. All of it is pretty outrageous. You can see the curvature of the Earth as he tumbles around. He was timed by radar at over 600 mph.
It was apparently part of a series of jumps at the time of the Mercury project to see if the astronauts would have a chance of surviving a bailout if something went wrong just after takeoff.
Tis nuts it is (as well as quite incredible).
Regards,
J. Kim Siddorn,