THE TAKEAWAY

THE TAKEAWAY

Joe Kittinger

The End of a Legendary Life

Bill Shafer

They say you should never meet your heroes. Not true. You just need to be sure you’ve chosen the right ones. As much as I have always been in awe of the accomplishments of Joseph Kittinger, I was even more in awe of his character.

As a matter of fact, if I had known I was going to live this long I’d have taken more chances.

JOSEPH KITTINGER

A member of the National Aviation Hall of Fame, Kittinger died on December 9, 2022, but it was not the first time the aerospace pioneer left this earth. That was on August 16, 1960, when he rode a helium balloon to an unprecedented height of 102,800 feet, making him the first human at the very edge of space.

“At that point I said a silent prayer, and I jumped.”

What he went through on the way down is nearly impossible to imagine. His body hurtled to earth, freefalling for five minutes, nearly reaching supersonic speed of 600 miles per hour. Kittinger set records for highest ascent and longest free-fall. His jump proved it was possible to travel to space. But he did not do it to set records.

“Every ejection seat in the world uses a small stabilization parachute to get down to low altitude,” Kittinger explained. “We needed those jumps to learn how to invent the system. That’s what we were after, and it makes us proud to have contributed to the safety and wellbeing of countless aviators and astronauts.”

That was just one of his many adventures. He volunteered for three tours of active duty with the US Air Force in the Vietnam War.

“I felt I owed it to my country to volunteer for combat,” he said.

Just one week before completion, on his 483rd combat mission, his F-4 fighter jet was shot down. He spent the next 11 months as a prisoner of war in the infamous Hoa Lo Camp, known as the Hanoi Hilton, where he was brutalized on an almost daily basis.

“We were not treated nicely. We were abused, tortured, and denied food and medical attention,” he said. “I was there with 500 other Americans and through it all we were united in love for our country.”

Another intriguing part of his life is that he may be 100% responsible for long standing rumors of an alien coverup at Roswell, TX, as the mysterious Red-Headed Captain who believers say recovered the bodies of extraterrestrials from a crashed flying saucer.

“We had to do research before my parachute jump where we dropped maybe 50 anthropomorphic dummies in pressure suits out there,” explained Kittinger. “Now, these things weighed a couple hundred pounds each and we’d have to find them and carry them on a stretcher to our converted army ambulance to take back to study the data. I bet there are even more still there that we never found. But this is what some people saw, not aliens. I can guarantee that there has been no alien coverup at Roswell.”

Kittinger made history again in 1984 as the first to cross the Atlantic solo in a hot air balloon. In 1997 he was enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame. He was even part of the team that eventually broke his skydive record in 2012.

Growing Bolder was with Kittinger when skydivers from all over the world gathered to honor him on the 50th anniversary of his record-setting jump, and again for one of his many livestream conversations with schoolchildren. Growing Bolder continued to reach out to Joe to share his perspective on all things related to aviation, Roswell, POWs and more.

Most of all, we were in awe of his character, his humanity and his willingness to do whatever he could to help. He believed in service to others, and that’s the life he and his wife, Sherry, continued to live right up until he was stopped by lung cancer. It is why at age 94 it still feels he was taken too soon. Our hope is that you will watch the many wonderful stories on Joe Kittinger at growingbolder.com to learn more of his legacy so that he may continue to inspire us all to reach for the stars.

“I’ve had a wonderful and adventurous life all because I never hesitated to volunteer for just about everything I could,” he said. “Some people say never volunteer for anything; I say, volunteer for everything. Everything I did in the research business, everything I did in fighters, everything I did in my career I did because I put my hand up to volunteer. I don’t think I ever had an assignment that I did not volunteer for. And it helped direct my path through life by opening me to a world of opportunities. I was just a very, very fortunate person.”