People have been traveling into the stratosphere by balloon since 1931, when Auguste Piccard and Paul Kipfer rode in a pressurized gondola (Piccard’s invention) to 51,775 feet. A series of Navy and Air Force programs in the 1950s and 1960s used pressure vessels or pressure suits to get balloonists higher, some to above 100,000 feet. Skydiver Nicholas Piantanida set an unofficial record—123,500 feet—in 1966, but a later attempt went awry when his helmet depressurized. His team brought the gondola down, but Piantanida suffered brain damage from lack of oxygen. He died four months later.