American Experience

NARRATOR

Simons settled in to spend the night, radioing back, I have a ring-side view of the heavens. Where the atmosphere merged with the colorless blackness of space, he would later recall, the sky was so heavily saturated with this blue-purple color, that it was hard to comprehend, like a musical note which is beautifully vibrant, but so high that it lies almost beyond the ear s ability to hear, leaving you certain of its brilliance but unsure whether you actually heard it or dreamed of its beauty.

HOLLINGS

The most beautiful descriptions come from the, from the balloonists who are that high up and they, they can suddenly see uh, this other universe, this, this, this dark, empty, fascinating, glittering universe.

BILGER

The willingness to put yourself in extreme danger simply to satisfy your curiosity is one of the oldest human impulses. You know, there weren t new continents to explore, but there was this place right above us. And we were able to exert that human impulse to

get there. NARRATOR

After 32 hours aloft, David Simons returned to earth. The Manhigh team had made history on the edge of space. Simons was put on the cover of Life magazine and The New York Times celebrated him as The First

Space Man. RYAN

Everybody connected with the project, including John Paul Stapp thought that this was going to be the mission that brought space research into the fore with the Air Force and really got them the respect and the funding that they thought they deserved. What happened in fact was, in spite of the celebrity that David Simons experienced, they had pretty much exhausted their funding. And they did not have enough money even to do the full analysis of the data they d gathered on the flight, much less begin seriously talking about another flight.