Joseph Kittinger

Colonel Joseph William Kittinger II was an officer in the United States Air Force and a Command Pilot. His initial operational assignment was in fighter aircraft, then he participated in the Project Manhigh and Project Excelsior high-altitude balloon flight projects from 1956 to 1960 and was the first man to fully witness the curvature of the Earth. He set a world record for the highest skydive: 102,800 feet on August 16, 1960. As a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War, Kittinger shot down a North Vietnamese MiG-21 jet fighter. He was later shot down himself, spending 11 months as a prisoner of war in a North Vietnamese prison until he was repatriated in 1973. In 1984, he was also the first man to make a solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in a gas balloon. In 2012, Kittinger participated in the Red Bull Stratos project as capsule communicator at age 84, directing Felix Baumgartner on his 24-mile freefall from Earth's stratosphere, which broke Kittinger's own 53-year-old record.