Time for some more military geekery. And I think that’s appropriate in this case, because this covers two interesting areas of research.
“Holloman — Frontier of the Future”, a documentary about Holloman AFB in New Mexico and some of the work going on there at the time. In addition to missile testing and flight operations, Holloman has a long (35,000 feet at the time: it was upgraded to 50,917 feet in 2000) rocket sled track: this is where John Paul Stapp did his work, and he’s interviewed briefly in the film.
Holloman was also the home base for Project Manhigh (though the balloons were launched from other sites).
If you can find a copy of it at a more reasonable price, The Pre-Astronauts: Manned Ballooning on the Threshold of Space by Craig Ryan (affiliate link), which is mentioned in the notes, is a swell book that I enthusiastically recommend.
Bonus video: and now for something completely different (and longer). I have not watched this yet, but I’m bookmarking it here for reasons I’ll go into in a moment.
From the National Capital Area Skeptics video channel on YouTube: Dr. Eric Cline lecturing on “1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed”.
I was totally unfamiliar with the Late Bronze Age Collapse until Paul Cooper covered it on the Fall of Civilizations podcast (which I enthusiastically endorse). Dr. Cline’s book (affiliate link) is on my Amazon wish list, and I’ll probably be ordering a copy soon-ish.