Kittinger and the Free-Fall From Space

Many of us gone sky-diving or bungee or base jumping. The more daring of you may have even done some extreme free falling. But none of us have ever done what Joseph Kittinger did on August 16, 1960: free-fall from space.

Joseph Kittinger

Kittinger performed the free-fall as part of a government experiment on how such high altitudes affect humans. To this day he still holds world records from this one jump alone: the highest balloon ascent, highest parachute jump, longest free-fall, and fastest speed by man through the atmosphere.

It all started in 1949, when Kittinger joined the Air Force as an aviation cadet. In 1953, he got the chance to participate in a rocket-sled experiment to test the effects of gravity on the human body. With land-speed legend John Paul Stapp overseeing, Kittinger flew at an astounding 632 mph! After the success of the rocket-sled experiment, he was transferred to something called Project Excelsior, which translates to “ever upward.” The project was to test the effects of extreme high altitude exposure to humans. (The rumor was that it was to see if astronauts could free fall from a space vehicle back to Earth if there was ever a problem. There has been no evidence to support this claim.)

 Kittinger dive seen from the Excelsior 

The first test was a disaster that nearly claimed his life. Jumping from 76,000 feet, Kittinger’s parachute malfunctioned and wrapped around his neck. He passed out and was only saved when his emergency chute launched at 10,000 feet and he was revived upon touching the ground. He made another attempt in December of 1959, falling from 74,700 and free-fell from 55,500 feet. Then, in August of 1960, he went up again in a special balloon and basket (called the Excelsior gondola). He reached an unheard of 102,800 feet, or 19.4696 miles. At this height, the air was a freezing minus 94 Fahrenheit, at which he stayed at for almost 12 minutes, despite a rupture in the right hand of his suit which exposed his hand to frostbite. After jumping, he free-fell for nearly five minutes, reaching a speed of 614 mph, all but breaking the sound barrier. He landed safely on the ground in jump that lasted over 13 minutes. View the video here.

He went faster than any other human being outside of a vehicle.

Later in life he spent 18 hours at 82,200 feet and flew 483 missions in the Vietnam War, before being shot down and held as a prisoner of war for a year. In 1983, he flew a balloon from Las Vegas to New York in under 72 hours and later still became the first man to fly across the Atlantic in a balloon, setting a solo record flight of 83 hours and 40 minutes.

According to Wikipedia:

Kittinger is currently advising Felix Baumgartner on a planned free-fall from 120,000 feet (about 36,000m). The project is called the Red Bull Stratos project and has collected leading experts in the fields of aeronautics, medicine and engineering to ensure its success. Felix Baumgartner will also become the first person ever to break the sound barrier while in free fall, if his jump is successful. Baumgartner's jump will be used to test the next generation of full pressure suits, used in space and to collect useful medical and scientific information. Although the jump was planned for 2010, it has been delayed by a legal case between Red Bull and promoter Daniel Hogan, who claims that he was first to propose the jump to Red Bull in 2004, and alleges that Red Bull backed out before resurrecting the project some years later. The lawsuit was resolved out of court in June 2011.

Born in 1928, he currently lives in Orlando, Florida.

The $400 Million Fortune That No One Gets

When Huguette Clark passed away at the age of 104 this past May, she left behind a few things: a bewildered family, an unknown identity, and an estate worth roughly $400 million. To top it all off, she left it all to her family…and she left nothing to her family.

Huguette as a child

Ms. Huguette Clarke, born on June 9, 1906, in Paris, France, was the daughter of United States Senator William Andrews Clark. Senator Clarke of Montana, who lived from 1839 to 1925, and served one full term as a Democrat from 1901 to 1907, was known as one of the Copper King’s and was always mired in controversy. He was elected to the senate in 1900, but gave up the seat due to a bribery scandal, involving other legislators, and that scandal spawned the 17^th Amendment, which gave the direct election of senators to the people, instead of the legislators that Clarke was bribing. He was dubbed one of the Copper King’s because he made his fortune in copper mining, owning mines in Montana and Arizona, as well as owning numerous banks and newspapers, investing in real estate and other profitable ventures. He was, at the beginning of the 20^th century, either the richest or second-richest man in America, possibly behind only John D. Rockefeller himself.

Senator Clarke shocked the world by announcing, when he was 64, that he had married in secret three years earlier, and had a daughter, Andrée. Ms. Huguette Clarke was born two years later and in 1908, the family moved into a massive 121-room house, located at Fifth Avenue and 77^th Street. Essentially a New York City mansion, the massive residence was filled with the French painting collection of the senator. Already, the young Ms. Clarke lived a secluded, yet wealthy and privileged life. In 1925, Senator Clarke died, and Huguette inherited one-fifth of his massive wealth of $3.6 billion in today’s dollars. Huguette’s one-fifth share was equal to $700 million today. When he mother died in 1963, she inherited almost all that fortune too.

Things began to get weird after that.

The last know photograph of Ms. Huguette Clarke, 

1930

Huguette became a recluse, so much so that the last known photograph of her was taken in 1930. Very little is known of her during this time. She married briefly but had no children. Her only full sister, Andree, died at age 16 and also had no children. So everything became hers and she became more and more shy. Her amassed wealth includes a $100 million oceanfront estate in Santa Barbra, CA; a $20 million country house in CT; three apartments in New York, whose total combined value is estimated at nearly $100 million; priceless paints by such masters as Renoir and Monet and an equally priceless doll collection.

Nearly 20 years ago, she decided to live in various hospital rooms under various fake names, perhaps to find the loneliness she must have felt from nearly a lifetime alone. Just last year, a reporter discovered that her three apartments in New York were empty and she became fodder on the internet and tabloids, as people tried to figure out exactly what made her tick.

Huguette originally had two wills made out, when she was 19 and 22 respectively, that left everything to her mother. Under state law, that means these first two will should leave everything to her current relatives making claims now, nearly 50 of them, all somehow related to Senator Clarke. On March 7, 2005, she hand wrote a new will, leaving $5 million to her long-time nurse, and only those relatives of hers that were related to her father from his first marriage. Then, six weeks later, on April 19, 2005, she wrote a new will, leaving her family nothing. Her nurse now received $34 million. Her attorney and her accountant, who worked on both wills, each received $500,000. Her doctor got $100,000. And finally, a massive amount of money went to charity that is run by both her attorney and accountant.

So the fight begins over this lost fortune as both sides try to figure out what happened in that six week span and try to piece together the mysterious puzzle that was the life of Huguette Clarke.