edit: SRB video was way cooler than the 'recommended' and not obnoxiously over-exposed.
There's a video of Joe Kittinger parachuting from a helium baloon near space(~30 km / ~100 000 feet) in 1960 that's even cooler and not ultra-over exposed like this one. There should also be a video of david simons jump from a similar altitude somewhere but I can't find that at all.
Sadly the best I can find on the web is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MkB6NkQscI . You'll have to ignore the non-sensical montage of surfers at the end of the video which is just plain weird.
And this from discovery
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-369888258105653405&q=joe+kittinger . I've seen better videos on some documentary years ago. But it doesn't seem to be available online.
From an interview with Kittinger:
"It took an hour and a half to get to altitude. It was cold. At 40,000 feet, the glove on my right hand hadn't inflated. I knew that if I radioed my doctor, he would abort the flight. If that happened, I knew I might never get another chance because there were lots of people who didn't want this test to happen. I took a calculated risk that I might lose use of my right hand. It quickly swelled up, and I did lose use for the duration of the flight. But the rest of the pressure suit worked. When I reached 102,800 feet, maximum altitude, I wasn't quite over the target. So I drifted for eleven minutes. The winds were out of the east."
...
"You can see about 400 miles in every direction. The most fascinating thing is that it's just black overhead-the transition from normal blue to black is very stark. You can't see stars because there's a lot of glare from the sun, so your pupils are too small. I was struck with the beauty of it. But I was also struck by how hostile it is: more than 100 degrees below zero, no air. If my protection suit failed, I would be dead in a few seconds. Blood actually boils above 62,000 feet. I went through my 46-step checklist, disconnected from the balloon's power supply, and lost all communication with the ground.
I was totally under power from the kit on my back. When everything was done, I stood up, turned around to the door, took one final look out and said a silent prayer: "Lord, take care of me now." Then I just jumped over the side."
Going to have to check out some of the others on the NASA site...
