Magnificent Failure: Free Fall from the Edge of Space

by Craig Ryan

Book Overview

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1588341410
• ISBN13: 9781588341419
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: Smithsonian Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Excellent !!

As a collector of books written by or about former astronauts as well as balloonist I can honestly say that this is one of the finest written accounts I have read. This book truly captures both the technical side of this endeavor and the man behind the dream. As a 3rd grade student of St. Bernard's Grade School in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1965 I distinctly recall being on the school playground and watching a small dot in the sky that we knew was a ballon. I recall at that time knowing the difference between gas and hot air ballons. The buzz on the playground was that someone was going to parachute from the balloon. I am not sure how I knew that but I was captivated by this event as I have been since by aeronautical events of all kinds. Thanks Craig Ryan.....this is a very cool book! EZ

A Man and his Dream, and a Debacle

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.

A Brother's Opinion

Craig Ryan accurately captures the type of person my brother was. Criag Ryan's research for this book was extensive and the result is truthful.

Magnificent Failure is a magnificent book

Twice in the narrative, Ryan quotes people close to Nick Piantanida as saying, "I don't think anyone ever really got to know Nick," but if anyone has gotten to know the essence of Nick Piantanida, it is Ryan himself. Nick is alive in the pages of Magnificent Failure. The scope of Piantanida's aspirations is stunning. The scope of his accomplishments is inspirational. The scope of his confidence is heroic and in the end tragic. "Magnificient Failure" is an excellent biography of a man well worth getting to know.

Magnificent Failure a Magnificent Accomplishment

Craig Ryan's "Magnificent Failure" is a book that offers a great story about a fascinating man, Nick Piantanida. Reading about Nick's life and his drive to go where no man had gone before is a pleasure in itself. But surrounding this exciting and ultimately tragic story is a framework of aviation history and a chronicle of what it was like to grow up in postwar America and live and work in the turbulent 1960s. Mr. Ryan brings the eyes and ears of a novelist to his creative non-fiction work. Characters come alive and share their exhilaration and their passion for a man who changed the lives of everyone he met. Shelby Foote would be proud.I came away from "Magnificent Failure" with restored faith in the nature of humanity and a new sense that no matter how difficult a problem might be we can draw upon the spirit exemplified by people such as Nick and the other characters in this story to work towards a relevant solution. And in our post-Twentieth Century world, that just might mean our very survival as a species.This book would make one heck of a movie.