Joseph Kittinger's Leap of Faith

Look carefully: You can just make out Air Force Colonel Joseph Kittinger, Jr. in a record-shattering free fall from the very edge of space on August 16, 1960, after jumping from a balloon-supported gondola 102,800 feet above New Mexico. During his descent, Kittinger reached approximate speeds of 614 miles an hour. The clouds beneath him are 15 miles away. Kittinger's leap was part of the Air Force's "Project Excelsior," which conducted research into high altitude bailouts from aircraft. Incredibly, almost 50 years later, Kittinger's record for the longest-ever free fall and highest parachute jump still stand.

Bruce McCandless' space ride

In February, 1984, astronaut Bruce McCandless floats 320 feet from the space shuttle Challenger during the first-ever untethered space walk, made possible by that most sci-fi of all gadgets, a jet-propelled backpack. Almost everything that makes the idea of exploring space can be found in this picture: the immediately recognizeable human form; the vastness of space; the blue glow of Earth, an impossibly long way off, and yet right there, in sight. For a second this picture feels comical. Quite quickly, it turns harrowing and thrilling at once.

Wearable Airbag Systems

Prone Gyres by Mowry Baden

In this floor hugging work Prone Gyres an arm supports a low platform in the shape of a truncated massage table. Operating a bit like a motorized lazy Susan, it allows a viewer to lie prone and use his or her own weight to propel the body through minor whorls of motorized gyres – an experience kindred to a ride on a lily pad engineered for a human being.

by Mowry Baden

SEVEN MYSTERIES OF GRAVITY

It's the force we all know about and think we understand. It keeps our feet firmly on the ground and our world circling the sun.

Yet look a little closer, and the certainties start to float away, revealing gravity as the most puzzling and least understood of the four fundamental forces of nature.

New Scientist

Astronaut Falling as a Cat

A trampolinist in a space suit imitating the falling movements of a cat, to find out how astronauts can move in space.

Professor Thomas R. Kane demonstrating a formula which explains how a cat's movements can be imitated by astronauts in space.




A cat being dropped upside down to demonstrate how a cat's movements while falling can be imitated by astronauts in space.

A gymnast rotating body by moving his arms in the "Jones Motion," during a test to see how astronauts can move in space with cat-like ease.

Falling in Style