Fly Me to the Moon

Abstract

On August 16th, 1960, sitting in an open-air gondola at 103,000’ carefully suspended by a 200’ tall helium balloon, U.S. Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger peers upon cobalt blue skies and the blackest of black (Figure 1). The avant-garde astronaut gets word from the ground crew, “Jump!”, triggering a free fall from 103,000’ and setting the record for the highest skydive ever by any living being (Kittinger, 1961; Kindy, 2023). Captain Joe blazed the trail for the likes of Sheppard, Grissom, and Glenn, testing the limits of the human body. A mere nine years later helium – a relative newcomer to the Periodic table - again flexed its muscle by aiding the propulsion system for Apollo 11’s moon expedition. Jettisoning to 2022, a whopping 180 space launches occurred worldwide, and this number is expected to double in less than seven years. Space tourism leads the pack with an average orbital joyride costing ∼$100K of helium to achieve lift-off (NASA/SpaceEx). During his lonely and ubiquitous ascent into the heavens in 1960, could Captain Kittinger have envisioned the oncoming explosion of helium uses? Could anyone has imagined?