Magnificent Failure: Free Fall from the Edge of Space

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Summary: I jumped with and photographed Nick Piantanida in Free Fall.
Review: As the manager of the Lakewood Parachuting Center in the 1960's I met and jumped with Nick from his first jump on. Craig Ryan understood what we were doing back then and wrote a wonderful story about what really happened.

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Summary: Correction to A Brother's Review
Review: I am Vern Piantanida, Nick Piantanida's brother. I already submitted a review for the book. I did this using my son-in-law's system so it picked up my review as being from him - James Keenan. Of course, this caused confusion as people think James is another brother to Nick. Nick had only one sibling - me. Sorry for the confusion.

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Summary: A Man and his Dream, and a Debacle
Review: On the morning of February 2, 1966, a gigantic weather balloon rose from the South Dakota prairie and soared straight into the Stratosphere. In the small aluminum gondola beneath the massive helium filled envelope, parachutist Nick Piantanida prepared to set a world's record. At 120,000 feet, he would jump out of the gondola, free fall for tens of thousands of feet - reaching a speed perhaps greater than Mach 1.0 in the process - and then glide to safety beneath a modified Para-Commander.

It wasn't meant to be. When he reached jump altitude, a horrified Piantanida discovered the quick-release on his oxygen hose had hopelessly jammed. He had no choice but to cut the gondola loose, and fall back to earth with the aid of its cargo parachute. Three months later he would make another attempt. Unfortunately for this brave and dauntless American, that jump would end in disaster, and cost him his life.

Author Craig Ryan, whose fascinating chronicle of military balloon flights and parachute tests The Pre-Astronauts briefly described Piantanida's Project Strato-Jump, revisits the topic in great detail in Magnificent Failure. While Strato-Jump has sometimes been denigrated as a haphazard effort undertaken by an amateur, Ryan makes clear that characterization is far from the truth. Piantanida was an extremely experienced parachutist, and a cadre of professionals from the civilian, contractor, and military world supported his effort. In reality, Strato-Jump was one of the boldest civilian efforts of its era, and it might well have succeeded had not the disconnect fitting jammed.

Where Piantanida's final, fatal flight is concerned, Ryan presents a great deal of new information and develops a credible scenario concerning what went awry. For years, this topic has been the subject of speculation and rumor. It is now clear that Piantanida was doomed from the moment he took off.

Yet while it does chronicle a debacle, Magnificent Failure is not merely a somber record of a botched endeavor. Rather, it is an entertaining and readable portrait of a larger-than-life figure who dreamed of glory and worked terrifically hard and against all odds to obtain it. Thanks to Ryan's research effort, technical insight, and journalism skills, the book is remarkably insightful, full of detail and pulse-pounding drama. In an era when civilian teams are once again striving to reach not just the upper atmosphere but space itself -- the X-Prize contenders come to mind -- Magnificent Failure delivers a message of inspiration, while at the same time reminding us that glory sometimes eludes even the bravest of men.