Google VP Sets New Record for a Stratospheric Leap
Alan Eustace makes history with his 26-mile fall.
Alan Eustace, a senior vice president at Google, broke the world altitude record for a parachute jump today by leaping from a stratospheric height of more than 135,000 feet. The StratEx team that assisted him includes some of the same people, like former NASA flight surgeon Jonathan Clark, who helped Austrian Felix Baumgartner make his 128,000-foot jump two years ago. Eustace dispensed with Baumgartner’s life-support capsule, settling instead for a much more compact rig lofted by balloon. The Paragon Space Development Corporation, the prime contractor for the StratEx jump, is also working to open the stratosphere to tourists.