In the 1950s and '60s, Captain Joseph Kittinger was a test pilot for the U.S. Air Force's high altitude balloon experiments. In 2015, Col. Kittinger sat down with American Experience to discuss ...

Narrator:This is what happened to Felix's mentor, Joe Kittinger, on one of his jumps, over 50 years ago. Joe Kittinger:When I was freefalling, all of a sudden I had this violent rotation.

On August 16, 1960, Joe Kittinger stood at the edge of his balloon's gondola, 19 and a half miles above the Earth's surface, and leapt out into the near vacuum of the stratosphere. Almost 14 ...