On August 16th 1960, Joe Kittinger went up in a balloon. And kept going. This is the story of an incredible journey, but beyond that it is the history of man's unfolding relationship with the sky. When Joe Kittinger finally came to a halt, he found himself in a paradoxical world of preternatural colour where the sun blazed from a sky as black as pitch. A few minutes on the very border of space were enough to persuade him to throw himself from his open gondola with relish. This is the tale of the fulfilment of one of our most ancient dreams; to escape the confines of the earth and find out exactly what lies beyond the beautiful blue dome of the sky. In the process, it overthrows the universal myth, enshrined in the West in the legends of Icarus and the Tower of Babel, that the realm above the clouds is strictly for the gods. A thousand years from now, when people look back on the roots of the Space Age, this is where it will all seem to have begun.