Joseph Kittinger
Colonel Joseph William Kittinger II (born July 27, 1928 in Tampa, Florida, United States) is a former command pilot, career military officer and retired Colonel in the United States Air Force. He is most famous for his participation in Project Manhigh and Project Excelsior, in 1960 setting the record longest skydive, from a height greater than 31 kilometres (19 mi). He was also the first man to make a solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in a gas balloon.
Serving as a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War, he achieved an aerial kill of a North Vietnamese jet fighter and was later shot down himself, spending 11 months as a prisoner of war in a North Vietnamese prison. In 2012, at the age of 84, he participated in the Red Bull Stratos project as capsule communicator, directing Felix Baumgartner on his record-breaking 39 kilometres (24 mi) freefall from Earth's stratosphere.
Read more about Joseph Kittinger: Early Life and Military Career, Project Excelsior, Project Stargazer, Later USAF Career, Awards and Decorations, Later Civilian Career, Legacy
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“If you tie a horse to a stake, do you expect he will grow fat? If you pen an Indian up on a small spot of earth, and compel him to stay there, he will not be contented, nor will he grow and prosper. I have asked some of the great white chiefs where they get their authority to say to the Indian that he shall stay in one place, while he sees white men going where they please. They can not tell me.”
—Chief Joseph (c. 1840–1904)