Project Excelsior - Background

Background

As jet planes flew higher and faster in the 1950s, the USAF became increasingly worried about the safety of flight crews who had to eject at high altitude. Tests in Operation High Dive with dummies had shown that a body in free-fall at high altitude would often go into a flat spin at a rate of up to 200 revolutions per minute. This would be potentially fatal.

Project Excelsior was initiated in 1958 to design a parachute system that would allow a safe, controlled descent after a high-altitude ejection. Francis Beaupre, a technician at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, devised a multi-stage parachute system to facilitate manned tests. This consisted of a small 6 ft (2 m) stabilizer or "drogue" parachute, designed to prevent uncontrolled spinning at high altitudes, and a 28 ft (8.5 m) main parachute that deployed at a lower altitude. The system included timers and altitude sensors that automatically deployed both parachutes at the correct points in the descent, even if the parachutist were unconscious or disabled.

To test the parachute system, staff at Wright Field built a 200 ft (61 m) high helium balloon with a capacity of nearly 3,000,000 cubic feet (85,000 m3) that could lift an open gondola and test pilot into the stratosphere. Kittinger, who was test director for the project, made three ascents and test jumps. As the gondola was unpressurized, Kittinger had to wear a full pressure suit during these tests, plus additional layers of clothing to protect him from the extreme cold at high altitude. Together with the parachute system, this almost doubled his weight.