The Highest Step in the World

Manned ballooning at the edge of space

Long before the first astronauts left the earth, Air Force Colonel John Paul Stapp was testing high-G rocket sleds and launching pilots above the atmosphere in pressurized spacecraft using huge helium balloons. We’ll meet the men and women who prepped and flew those missions, and the pilot who parachuted back from the edge of space - three times.

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