From news Mon Oct 15 13:30:58 2001 Path: ditka!news.mv.net!newsfeed.mathworks.com!nntp.abs.net!news-out.visi.com!hermes.visi.com!gemini.tycho.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Approved: sci-military-moderated@retro.com From: mplaxton@foolishearthling.com (Plax) Newsgroups: alt.military.retired,sci.military.moderated,sci.aeronautics.airliners,sci.aeronautics.simulation Subject: Discovery Channel Canada TV Special on Pre-Astronaut Heroes - October 18th @ 9pm Date: 14 Oct 2001 12:08:35 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 1378e533.newsreader.tycho.net X-Trace: 1003172770 gemini.tycho.net 331 205.179.181.194 Considering this newsgroup's interests, I thought you would find news of this upcoming TV show on Discovery Channel Canada interesting. - Plax *** Airing October 18th, 2001 at 9:00pm on Discovery Canada a Secrets of Science special presentation SCIENCE HIGHWAY: THE HIGHEST STEP IN THE WORLD NARRATED BY GRAHAM GREENE This Canadian produced one-hour special documents the amazing accomplishments of Air Force Colonel Dr. John Paul Stapp, along with his team's pre-NASA explorations of space. Determined to make early fighter jets safer to fly, Dr. Stapp and his team undertook the incredible job of devising a parachute that could return a man safely to earth when deployed from the very edge of space. Stapp's story, along with the astronaut who made the 103,000-foot freefall from space to test the parachute form the core of this exciting special. Through in-depth interviews and rare film footage, "SCIENCE HIGHWAY: The Highest Step in the World" provides never before seen details of a thrilling chapter in aerospace history. In the 1950's Air Force Colonel Dr. John Paul Stapp's passion lay in making recently developed fighter jets safer to fly. Often without Airforce approval, Colonel Stapp built high-speed rocket sleds, on which he would hurl himself across the Alamogordo Dessert - pulling 46.2 Gs on his final runs. The data gathered at these runs led directly to all subsequent cockpit designs in fighter jets, spacecraft, and even the seatbelts in your car. In 1955 while exposed in an open sled, Stapp was the first man to probe the sound barrier at ground level. A young pilot named Joe Kittinger was the chase pilot flying overhead on all of Stapp's high-G speed runs. Later on Kittinger would do his own test runs for Stapp - the first pressurized capsule ride into space, and a free fall from a helium balloon perched at over 100,000 feet (3 times the height of Mt. Everest) above the earth. In the late 50s and early 60s, a series of high-altitude test flights were being conducted at the edge of space. Astronauts would fly helium balloons more than one-hundred-thousand feet straight up. Predating NASA and Yuri Gagarin, these men were our first space travellers, in one case living up there for 36 hours. These "Pre-Astronauts" collected valuable data for future spaceflight and made astronomical observations. Dr. Stapp and his team saw this as an excellent opportunity to test a newly developed high-altitude parachute that could ensure the safety of future astronauts. On August 16th, 1960 Captain Joe Kittinger Jr. rode a gondola affixed to a hot air balloon to the very edge of space. After collecting data Kittinger took what still stands today as the 'highest step in the world' and parachuted from over 100,000 feet safely back to earth. He free fell for over 4 minutes, and is the only human to break the sound barrier without the aid of equipment. Interviews with Kittinger and Stapp give us an inside view of exactly what happened on that historic day, along with the team who made this early space trial possible. Narrated by Canadian Graham Greene. If you would like more information on this program, visit the website www.foolishearthling.com OR Please contact: Donna Schweitzer Shea Warrington Hayes Director Publicity and Promotion Manager Communications Media Group International Discovery Channel Canada (416) 962-5490 ext 2 (416) 332-4222 donna-schweitzer@mediagrp.com swarring@discovery.ca