On August 16, 1960, Joe Kittinger stood at the edge of his balloon's gondola, 19 and a half miles above the Earth's surface, and leapt out into the near vacuum of the stratosphere. Almost 14 ...
The stratosphere is the atmospheric layer extending from 10 km to about 50 km in altitude above the Earth's surface. Below this is the troposphere, which is in contact with the oceans and ...