The New Frontier

Can you imagine doing this?

Parachute jump from over 100,000 feet.

In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner wrote a paper entitled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History." Daniel Henninger, of the Wall Street Journal, mentioned this in his column today--"America Needs Its Frontier Spirit।" (See link at right.)

"Turner argued," Mr. Henninger wrote, "that the U.S. found its identity as it pushed away from the Eastern seaboard and crossed the frontier 'fall lines': the Allegheny Mountains, the Mississippi, the Missouri, the plains, the Rocky Mountains and California."

Turner described the "traits of the frontier," things like "coarseness of strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness...nervous energy...and dominant individualism, working for good and evil."

"Individualism working for good is the story of America's entrepreneurs, the wonder of the world the past 100 years," wrote Mr. Henninger.

Entrepreneurs are risk takers and that's what has made our country grow. But then, risk takers also helped cause the current economic recession.

Mr. Henninger makes a very good point: We need risk takers to continue the long economic miracle we know as the U.S. In the current climate, however, many people are risk averse. That's fine to a point. Ultimately though, we need risk takers.

With that in mind I call your attention to Joseph W. Kittinger II, a highly decorated U.S. Air Force Colonel who spent 18 months during the Vietnam War as a POW in the Hanoi Hilton prison.

But my reason for mentioning Colonel Kittinger is not that particular experience. Rather, it is because he demonstrated frontier spirit in August 1960. That's when he made a volunteer parachute jump from more than 100,000 feet--literally from space. He jumped from a platform suspended from a helium balloon at 102,800 feet. He wore a pressurized suit and fell for 4 minutes and 36 seconds, reaching a speed of over 600 miles per hour.

It was actually his third high altitude jump. The first one almost killed him. He decided to try it again to get it right.

The jumps were part of Air Force Project Excelsior, which conducted research for the design of escape systems for high altitude flying and space travel.

Colonel Kittinger embodied the frontier spirit observed by Mr. Turner in 1893 and of which Mr. Henninger reminds us today. That spirit is what helped make our country great and will do so going forward--if we embrace it.

The clip below will tell you more about Colonel Kittinger's jump. He appears in the video.

(For Quick Vue advance the cursor halfway. Click on the second icon from the left in lower right corner to enlarge video to full screen.)