Later this summer, we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first man in space.  Wait, GorT, you’re wrong, Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin’s flight was on April 12th, 1961 making last month the 49th anniversary.  Well let me introduce you to Colonel Joseph Kittinger, USAF, Retired.  Col. Kittinger was part of Project Excelsior which was a series of experiments around high altitude bailouts.  After two jumps from around 75,000 ft, one that nearly ended in disaster, he boarded the Excelsior III for his record-setting leap.  On August 16, 1960, he stepped off the Excelsior III gondola at an altitude of 102,800 ft.  This remains a US Air Force record today.  Over three-quarters of the mass of the Earth’s atmosphere is within 36,000 feet and the lack of pressure (only 5mm of pressure versus about 780mm on the ground) and heat makes 100,000 feet a very inhospitable environment.  As you watch the video below, note that during the ascent his right glove developed a malfunction which caused his hand to swell to twice it’s normal size.  During his free fall, he reached a speed of 625.2 miles per hour – close to the speed of sound.  He spent over 13 minutes and 45 seconds in descent.  You can read more about Col. Kittinger here – quite the impressive man.

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.