In 1960, there were some very significant changes in science, flight research, and oceanography that took place, but not only that, but a serious admission made by a former CIA Director that was controversial then and even today. This was also the year that NASA unveiled plans for a manned space program that would involve orbiting around earth and eventually landing men on the moon beginning with the Mercury Space Program.

Let’s begin with former CIA Director, Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, who is quoted on the New York Times saying that, "Behind the scenes, high-ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense."  He further stated that this was a dangerous failure in policy. The Admiral also concluded that due to the high speed and maneuverability as well as being intelligently controlled, that neither the US nor the Soviet Union possessed the technology to operate such an aerial craft.

The first of several manned high altitude skydives by the US Air Force astronauts would commence. Project Excelsior, was dubbed as a program that would test the feasibility of high altitude aircraft escape and ejection systems. August 16, 1960 Joseph Kittinger made a record 102,800 foot jump from a capsule that ascended to the heavens suspended from a Sky Hook balloon! Higher than any cloud formation into the exosphere, the US Air Force officer plunged to earth at nearly Mach speed before his first of 2 parachutes opened and allowed him to safely land on terra firma again. His filmed jump from camera footage from the platform shows nothing by a misty blue planet earth, spherical, and shrouded below in cloud cover as he leaps into the last layer of the outer atmosphere before the vacuum of space! In fact, Kittinger was descending at such speed that if he did not keep his body in a certain posture he risked going into a fatal flat spin!

January 23, 1960 the deepest known depths of earth’s oceans, the Challenger Deep in the Mariana’s Trench in the Pacific Ocean was finally reached. This incredible naval history milestone was achieved using a vessel known as a bathyscaphe, a type of manned deep water exploration vessel lowered by cable and an iron ball counter balance weight lowering the craft to what would have been a fatal crush depth for any conventional submarine many times over. It took 4 hours for the descent to the bottom of the ocean floor there! The Trieste, as it was named, had two hulls. The outer hull with a second layer filled with gasoline inner hull that allowed for the compression of extreme outer pressure. A planned 30 minute time to conduct experiments had to be cut short to 20 minutes as a cloud of sediment blinded the outer portholes and cameras. They detected sparse life but were surprised anything could survive there! At a depth of 35,797 feet took 3 hours of ascent to return to the surface.

The escape hatch and tunnel cracked during the ascent, not from pressure but from the temperature extremes form the frigid deep waters back to the warmer surface temperatures again! There was concern that the two researchers inside Jacque Piccard, a Swedish engineer, and Lieutenant, Don Walsh, naval officer in charge, operating the Trieste when at 32,400 feet there was an unexplained jolt and noise that concerned the crew and top surface staff, but it was decided to continue anyway! The US Navy had transported the bathyscaph to Guam where 7 test dives were conducted before the colossal task of conquering the Challenger Deep!