Diving from the edge of space: How New Mexico played a role in testing high-altitude parachutes

WHITE SANDS, N.M. (KRQE) – For the last 60 years, New Mexico has been a proving ground for generations of air and spacecraft. But what happens when someone has to eject from an aircraft at high altitude? In August 1960, Joseph Kittinger rode a balloon more than 100,000 feet above the New Mexico landscape to test how to safely bring people back to Earth.

According to the New Mexico Museum of Space History, Kittinger was named the test director of Project Excelsior in late 1958 after serving with the United States Air Force and getting his pilot wings in 1950. “The two objectives of Project Excelsior was first, how to protect a man in space environment and second how to protect the means of escape in very high altitude,” said Kittinger in an interview with the United States Air Force.

The project was a series of three jumps with the first in November 1959 at 76,000 feet above the Earth. That jump nearly killed Kittinger after a parachute malfunction left him spinning uncontrollably. An emergency parachute saved his life. “When a person ejects at extreme high altitude, he is liable to spin, and the higher you eject, the more spinning you can do,” said Kittinger.

His third and final jump would come in August 1960. “The take-off was in the morning at about six o’clock. The climb from takeoff to 102,000 feet was about an hour and a half,” said Kittinger.

The ascent was not without problems. “At 40,000 feet where my pressure suit inflates, and I suddenly discovered the pressure suit on my right hand was not working. I knew that if I told the people on the ground I had this problem, they’d make me abort the flight; so I opted not to tell the people on the ground that I had this problem. I could not use my right hand during this flight, everything I had to use my left hand, it swelled up about twice its normal size,” said Kittinger.

He stayed in the gondola for about twelve minutes looking down at Earth. “It was a very interesting experience for me to look at the horizon and I could see over 400 miles from that altitude,” said Kittinger.

Then, he stepped out and began his descent. “I fell for, it seemed like I wasn’t moving at all. There was no question of velocity, there’s nothing you can see, so I rolled on my back, I looked up and I saw the balloon flying into space, I said ‘My gosh, that’s amazing,’ and suddenly I realized the balloon was sitting still and I was going down at a fantastic rate, and then the small probe chute came out and stabilized from that altitude all the way down to 14,000 feet when my main parachute opened and then it was just a question of getting down to the ground,” said Kittinger.

According to the New Mexico Space Museum, Kittinger set three records during the jump. It was instrumental in parachute and aircraft safety measures. “As a result of this test today, some 54 years later, every ejection seat in the world uses a small drogue chute to stabilize a free fall from high altitude,” said Kittinger.

He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for Project Excelsior. Kittinger retired from the Air Force in 1978 and remained active in the ballooning community. In 2022, Kittinger died at the age of 94.

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