Boards of Canada – Dayvan Cowboy Music Video // Cpt. Joe Kittinger

I like that this band Boards of Canada used footage of Captain Joe Kittingers jump from the stratosphere on their new vid. If you don’t know Captain Joe, then you don’t know the biggest set of balls in the universe…yeah that’s right, even BIGGER than whats his name who walked on the moon. For yous that need some history on the subject, we’ve quoted this tidbit from dropzone.com:

“In the 1950s, the U.S. Air Force took on the issue of hazards faced by flight crews bailing out from high-flying aircraft. As part of the research, Project Excelsior used a gondola-toting balloon to carry a pilot high into the stratosphere. From the end of 1959 into mid-1960, Captain Joseph Kittinger took three leaps of faith. He counted on himself, medical experts, protective gear, and a newly devised parachute system to ensure a safe and controlled descent to the ground.

On August 16, 1960, Kittinger jumped his last Excelsior jump, doing so from an air-thin height of 102,800 feet (31,334 meters). From that nearly 20 miles altitude, his tumble toward terra firma took some 4 minutes and 36 seconds. Exceeding the speed of sound during the fall, Kittinger used a small stabilizing chute before a larger, main parachute opened in the denser atmosphere.

He safely touched down in barren New Mexico desert, 13 minutes 45 seconds after he vaulted into the void.

The jump set records that still stand today, among them, the highest parachute jump, the longest freefall, and the fastest speed ever attained by a human through the atmosphere. Somewhat in contention is Kittinger’s use of the small parachute for stabilization during his record-setting fall. Roger Eugene Andreyev, a Russian, is touted as holding the world’s free fall record of 80,325 feet (24,483 meters), made on November 1, 1962.”

And here’s the music vid without further ado: