=================«~£F================
A Cover-Up?
Countering claims of a cover-up, Air Force projects that used
anthropomorphic dummies and human subjects were unclassified and
widely publicized in numerous newspaper and magazine stories, books, and
television reports. These included a book written by test pilot Kittinger,
The Long, Lonely Leap, another book, Man High, by MAN HIGH Project
Scientist, Lt. Col. David G. Simons (MC), a feature article in National
Geographic, and cover stories in Life, Collier's, Popular Mechanics,
and Time. 47 A characterization of Kittinger's record parachute jump even
appeared in the adolescent magazine, MAD. 48 The intense public interest
in HIGH DrvE, ExcELSIOR and other aero medical projects conducted at
Holloman AFB also resulted in a 1956 Twentieth Century Fox full-length
motion picture, On the Threshold of Space (see page 38).
The Long,
Lonely Leap
By CAPT. JOSEPH W. KITT!NGER,JR. USAF
lltuslrations by National Geographic
pholo;rraphcr VOl.KAIAR WE.V1'ZEL
OVERHEAD my onion-shaped balloon spread its 200~
foot a block daytime sky More
than the dourl-hidden New
Mexico de5ert to which would parachute.
Sitting in my gondola, ~ently hvisted with the bat~
lonn1s slow turnings. l had begun to sweat lightly, thQugh
the temperature read 36° below zero Fahrenheit Sunlight
burned in QU me under th{~ edge of an aluminized antiglare
curtain and through th<> gondola's open door.
In myearphone$trackled the voice of Capt. Marvin Feld-
stein. one of our pmjed's twu dodorB, from ground control
at Holloman Air Fon;e Base:
"Three till jump. Joe.''
J wa~ to g:o, for more rell$ons than one, For about
an hour- as balloon rose from 50,00() to 102,300 feet
above S<'a Ievel-l had been exposed to an environment rc~
26
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.