[Illustration: Fig. 26. This photo of Capt. Joseph W. Kittinger, Jr. taken by a remotely operated camera on the EXCELSIOR III gondola, was featured in the December 1960 _National Geographic_. The Long, Lonely Leap _World’s highest jump tests a new type of parachute for high-altitude flyers and scientists returning from the threshold of space_ By CAPT. JOSEPH W. KITTINGER. JR., USAF _Illustrations by National Geographic photographer VOLKMAR WENTZEL_ OVERHEAD my onion-shaped balloon spread its 200-foot diameter against a black daytime sky. More than 18½ miles below lay the cloud-hidden New Mexico desert to which I shortly would parachute. Sitting in my gondola, which gently twisted with the balloon’s slow turnings, I had begun to sweat lightly, though the temperature read 36° below zero Fahrenheit. Sunlight burned in on me under the edge of an aluminized antiglare curtain and through the gondola’s open door. In my earphones crackled the voice of Capt. Marvin Feldstein, one of our project’s two doctors, from ground control at Holloman Air Force Base: “Three minutes till jump, Joe.” I was ready to go, for more reasons than one. For about an hour—as the balloon rose from 50,000 to 102,800 feet above sea level—I had been exposed to an environment requiring the protection of a pressure suit and helmet, and the fear of their failure had always been present. If either should break, unconsciousness would come in 10 or 12 seconds, and death within two minutes. In our altitude-chamber flights at the laboratory, I always “=Lord, take care of me now=,” I pray, then take the big step-off that begins my return from the edge of space, a 13-minute, 45-second plunge to an earth wrapped in clouds. The lanyard attached to my parachute pack is my last link with the gondola. It starts a timer on a small stabilization chute that will open 16 seconds later and prevent horizontal spinning. Without stabilization, man could not survive a jump from these high altitudes. A National Geographic camera mounted above the gondola took this remarkable photograph at 102,800 feet. MS Ektachrome National Geographic Society ] [Illustration: Fig. 27. Contemporary magazines that featured experiments at Holloman AFB, N.M. _Clockwise from top left_, _Time_, September 12, 1955; _Life_, August 29, 1960; _Popular Mechanics Magazine_, (_center_) January 1951; _Collier’s_, June 25, 1954; and _Life_, September 2, 1957.] Dummy Drop Procedures For the majority of the tests, dummies were flown to altitudes between 30,000 and 98,000 feet attached to a specially designed rack suspended below a high altitude balloon.[49] On several flights the dummies were mounted in the door of an experimental high altitude balloon gondola.[50] Upon reaching the desired altitude, the dummies were released and free-fell for several minutes before deployment of the main parachute.