Joseph Kittinger fell 4.5 minutes from 102,800 ft in 1960

Joseph Kittinger jumped from 102,800 feet over New Mexico on 16 August 1960, free-falling for 4 minutes 37 seconds, which is still the longest-lasting free fall on record. The U.S. Air Force captain stepped out of the open gondola of the Excelsior III balloon just before 7 a.m., reached speeds up to 614 mph in temperatures as low as -94°F, and opened his main parachute at about 18,000 feet.

Project Excelsior was a safety experiment, not a stunt. It tested the equipment and techniques that would let a pilot bail out at extreme altitude and survive. The key idea was a small stabilizing parachute, and it almost cost Kittinger his life before the record jump ever happened.

On his first Excelsior jump, from 76,400 feet in November 1959, the lines of that little chute wrapped around his neck; he freed himself only when his emergency parachute opened at 12,000 feet. Three weeks later he jumped again without incident, and on the record leap he trailed a stabilizing drogue chute all the way down.

The margins were thin. If his pressure suit had failed at that height, he would have lost consciousness within 12 seconds. One glove did fail, leaving his hand painfully swollen. Before stepping off, he told ground controllers:

“Man will never conquer space. He may live in it, but he will never conquer it.”

He landed in the White Sands Missile Range holding three world records: highest open-gondola ascent, longest free fall and longest parachute descent. His jump-altitude mark lasted 52 years. In 2012 Felix Baumgartner jumped from higher still, with Kittinger, by then a retired colonel, on his support team, advising him during the ascent. Baumgartner took the altitude record, but his free fall was 16 seconds shorter, so Kittinger kept the record for the longest-lasting free fall.