3039: Human Altitude
Explanation[edit]
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This explanation is incomplete: Created by a BOT HILARIOUSLY STUCK IN A TREBUCHET. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! |
This comic shows the altitudes of the highest humans over time, using a logarithmic vertical scale to display both low-level altitudes and highest achievements. The graph tracks the single most altitudinous individual at any given time, measuring height above Earth's surface rather than sea level, meaning residents of Tibet or the high Peruvian Andes gain no particular advantage.
Prior to the first confirmed ascent in a balloon in 1783, the high points were due to "various falls" and "catapult accidents," such as being caught in a trebuchet when fired. Once balloon flights began, heights of up to 10km were attained, despite some dangers. The advent of airplanes in the 1900s led to even greater heights, particularly after World War 2 when regular high-altitude flight became common among bomber pilots.
The emergence of spaceflight in the late 1960s dramatically increased the upper spikes, with the Apollo Program (from Apollo 8 to Apollo 17) reaching approximately 400,000km during Moon missions. After the Moon landings, altitudes settled to orbital distances, with the "Space Station" era marking continuous human presence at about 400km since November 2000, occasionally higher for missions like servicing the Hubble Space Telescope at 515km.
Notable exclusions from the graph include early experiments with man-flying kites, cathedral workers, and visitors to structures like the Eiffel tower (276m), suggesting Randall excluded cases where people were standing on permanent structures. The graph also appears to ignore cases that are difficult to substantiate, such as those caused by violent winds, although it conveys an impression of omniscient certainty.
The title text speculates about pre-balloon altitude records (excluding cases like jumping gaps on mountain bridges), suggesting survival from falls into water or snow, or more extreme scenarios involving gunpowder explosions or volcanic eruptions. As of the comic's date, the record for surviving a cliff jump into water is 58.8 meters, set in 2015.
A different interpretation could track the highest altitude visited by any still living human, similar to 893: 65 Years but following different rules. This would maintain Moon-height records from the first Apollo 8 orbit until the last Apollo astronaut's death (missions 8-17), unless superseded by greater records or achievements from other space programs.
Transcript[edit]
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This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks. |
- Height above Earth's surface of the highest-altitude human over time
- (very approximate)
- [A line graph is shown, with frequent spikes on the line. The y-axis is a logarithmic scale from 1 meter to 1,000,000 km. The x-axis shows years from about 1710 to 2025.]
- [Label between 1720s and 1780s, maximum height is roughly 100 meters:]
- Various falls and hilarious catapult accidents
- [Label with multiple arrows, from 1780s to 1910s, maximum height is roughly 10 km:]
- Balloon flights
- [Label with multiple arrows, from 1910s to 1960s, maximum height increases to roughly 100 km:]
- Airplane flights
- [Label with arrow, in the late 1960s, maximum height is roughly 500 km:]
- Spaceflight
- [Label with arrow, in the 1970s, maximum height is roughly 500,000 km:]
- Apollo Program
- [Label between 1990s and 2025, the average height after 2000 is roughly 500 km:]
- Space station



Discussion
I splurged a few paragraphs to try to deal with each detail (and a few things not directly obvious, but related). However, it's a mess and here (UK) it's basically past my bedtime and I have an early(ish) start tomorrow so... I know that if I had spent another half hour on it, it would have been tighter (less florid?), and would be linking to Yuri Gagarin, Montgolfier, Hubble, man-capable chinese kites, the likes of George Cayley, etc. And I never actually mentioned the Title Text, though the last paragraph I put is sort of relevent so might just need an "In the title text, it says ..., and, as it happens, ...". I shall leave it up to the editing-gods as to whether my sacrifice is acceptable or entirely in vain... Such is life! And so, goodnight. 172.68.205.119 01:39, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- I linked up a couple Wikipedia articles with Template:w and wish I could add all of those things, but alas: today’s the last day of the semester on a 3 day weekend here in the States and I’ve been sick all week. I’m going to be going now to work on my missing assignments and hopefully finish them, really wish that we can finish up the explanation as quick as we usually do! 42.book.addictTalk to me! 01:48, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
It seems strange how jagged this is and how low the lows are. Since roughly 1930 (certainly since 1940 at the very latest) someone, somewhere in the world has been flying in an airplane, at a minimum of probably 4.5km for the lowest person. And since like 1955 there's always at least someone over like 7km roughly, and since the jet age like 10km+. This isn't the kind of carelessness that xkcd is known for, unless I'm missing something.Kchinger (talk) 03:27, 18 January 2025 (UTC)kchinger
- The Apollo part of the graph implies an at least weekly, probably daily or finer resolution. Aviation unlikely reached 4.5 km above surface on a daily basis until transpacific high altitude airliners became a regularity well after WW2. Planes of the 1930s could achieve greater heights, but usually only attempted when moutains forced them to (so it was not height above ground) and high altitude Zeppelin bombers of WW1 did not fly on a daily basis, sometimes leaving week long gaps between campaigns. However, the pre-airplane lows are still wrong: Pole vaulting has been documented since ancient egypts for crossing of crevices, bodies of water, etc. giving a guaranteed minimum of 2-3 meters. Cliff jumping in the 10s of meters range is also likely to have occured daily somewhere on the globe long before the 20th century and I would not be surprised if some tyrannt created a phase of more than 100 m daily by intensive cliff throwing. (As with the ancient chineses kite observation flights, it might be interesting to extend this graph well into the past, at least up to Spartan postnatal parenthood planning.) 172.70.250.194 16:06, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- Aviation unlikely reached 4.5 km above surface on a daily basis until transpacific high altitude airliners became a regularity well after WW2. Planes of the 1930s could achieve greater heights, but usually only attempted when moutains forced them to... The limit is the humans. Past 10k or 15k feet (~4.5km) they go loopy then pass out. Pressurized cabins are costly. Wiley Post flew past 17,000 ft (to 50kft!) in 1934 with a pot on his head, after two other suits split their seams. War forces high flight: the B-17 crews had oxygen bottles and electric heat suits; they did fly about every day but thin air was the least of their problems. B-25 was pressurized but not nice inside. The Constellation (the world's finest tri-motor) was one of the first shirtsleeve cabins, to 24,000 ft (7,300m), but was a very premium ride. The DC-2, DC-3, and DC-4 were unpressurized (a few test DC-4s tried it). Piston engine output tends to zero by 55k ft, even with supercharger. The real move to high altitude comes with turbojets (Comet is credited with first pressurized production passenger plane), Boeing 707, Caravelle, DC8, etc which often work better far above 20k feet. --PRR (talk) 20:09, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- While pesky waterbags limit the altitude of passenger aircraft, military, scientific and perhaps even postal/fright aviation went past 4.5 km without pressurized cabins. As mentioned, London was bombed at the end of WW1 from Zeppelins with regular service ceilings well above 6 km, the record was set at 7.3 km. And these did not even carry oxygen for the full flight time, as did record attempts. Take a link to the first flights above Everest in the early 30s: https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/first-flight-expedition-everest-1933/ However, this is all record/rare stuff for top peaks. With overlapping nights in Europa and America, the global low of the 30s was probably limited by some BOAC cruisers flying 500 to 1.000 m above the sea or some valley floor in southeast Asia. 172.71.148.59 22:19, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
- Aviation unlikely reached 4.5 km above surface on a daily basis until transpacific high altitude airliners became a regularity well after WW2. Planes of the 1930s could achieve greater heights, but usually only attempted when moutains forced them to... The limit is the humans. Past 10k or 15k feet (~4.5km) they go loopy then pass out. Pressurized cabins are costly. Wiley Post flew past 17,000 ft (to 50kft!) in 1934 with a pot on his head, after two other suits split their seams. War forces high flight: the B-17 crews had oxygen bottles and electric heat suits; they did fly about every day but thin air was the least of their problems. B-25 was pressurized but not nice inside. The Constellation (the world's finest tri-motor) was one of the first shirtsleeve cabins, to 24,000 ft (7,300m), but was a very premium ride. The DC-2, DC-3, and DC-4 were unpressurized (a few test DC-4s tried it). Piston engine output tends to zero by 55k ft, even with supercharger. The real move to high altitude comes with turbojets (Comet is credited with first pressurized production passenger plane), Boeing 707, Caravelle, DC8, etc which often work better far above 20k feet. --PRR (talk) 20:09, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
For the "Apollo bits", I actually have (fairly) precise data, but the question is whether the spiky bits resemble the reality at all. Here's a version with accurately positioned timestamps, but with the the altitude normalised. Launch is at bottom, time in lunar orbit is at top. To keep the data short I have removed the 'oscillation in orbit" of them all (except for 13, which just looped around and came straight back out again), and the track of the landers (as never really gets any further away, averaged over a lunar orbiter orbit) as these things aren't really isn't visible if overviewing the whole program. Blue=orbit-only, Green=orbit-with-landing, Magenta is 13's mission. All sat on a month-start scale (thicker lines are year-starts), for reference.
Apollo.SVG |
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If you want to see it, copy the text into a file, save/rename as a .svg and open it in any modern browser. (There are other ways of opening SVGs, but that's probably the easiest way for most of those who don't have a preference.) ...to make it look more like the comic, I suggest you make the stroke-width for the missionLines group huuuuuuge!!!! ;) 162.158.74.118 21:14, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
Some of the text (both in the explanation and the "into snow or water" in the title text) seems to suggest a "who wasn't shortly killed" that isn't stated in the chart. 172.69.246.150 05:55, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- "into snow or water" is in the title text which is about surviving... --Lupo (talk) 13:05, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
I wonder why the chart does not consider parachutes? They might have been available around the same time as balloons, maybe earlier? Captain Nemo (talk) 12:29, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- A parachutist can onyl start as high as his ballon, so that would make no difference until paragliding became a sport (way too late). However, most highs are still utterly wrong due to the omission of high altitude balooning from the mid-19th century onwards: It seems that no true airplane has ever beaten older baloon records. AT ALL. In fact, among all the objects capable of aerodynamic flight, only the X-2, the X-15 and the Space Shuttle set new 'maximum manned altidude' records going beyond aerostats of their time. However, all three ascended in balistic, rocketpowered flight, only using the lift of their wings during return. So humanitys pinnacle has always been defined by people thrown of cliffs, people attached to kites, peoples in baloons or people on rockets. 172.70.250.194 16:06, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
huh. no joke comic. youtu.be/miLcaqq2Zpk 15:43, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
Yuan Huangtou is a strong contender for the question in the title text. As a punishment he was sent to the sky on a big kite which was then let go. He came down 2.5 km away and survived. It seems entirely possible that he may have reached altitudes of several hundred meters. 162.158.95.196 19:05, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- From my recollection of a book on Chinese kite history, I'd put the max for a person-carrying kite at around a couple hundred meters. 162.158.41.9 04:59, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
- As a technical argument, I'd mention that what makes a kite a kite is that it is tethered (albeit dynamically, whether to a winch or a firmly ground-based handler, rather than necessarily tied to the ground; this makes the kites in kite-surfing/sailing/skating/etc a bit of an edge condition, but still valid as the canchor' is only ever itself airborne by temporarily depleting the kite's 'lift ability').
- Unless it was at the end of a 2.5km tether, at least part of the time the kite was released became a glider. And the means for keeping a glider up (and then ultimately not descending too fast!) are somewhat different from how you make a kite controllable. Even if you successfully raised a man-kite up and brought them back down several times (getting both the payer-out person and the payload-person used to how to control the kite-flight), the attitude and augmenting flight-surfaces that the kite used to get/keep/maintain height would probably be entirely wrong (perhaps even counterproductive!) when the release happens and the 'passenger' needs to now suddenly develop the need to "fly a glider" (or, maybe, a suboptimal parasail)
- I would not be surprised if many (reluctant) 'test pilots' failed to work out how not to stall (and other forms of flight-failure) in the time and distance they had before they reached the ground. The later ones might have a better hash of it if they were taken to witness their first compatriots' efforts (and those initial 'candidates' were able to shout down what they were feeling/doing, during their final fateful moments, to assist both the builders and future-fliers)... But, in the days before any actual aviation experience (let alone any form of flight-recorder, for both easier detailing of events and the repeatable playback for their better analysis), quite a bit of luck (or some coincidentally instinctive panic-induced response to falling, perhaps somehow harking back to the most recent common ancestor with a sugarglider/flying-squirrel/etc) will have played a part in whoever it might have been who rode a once-kite-now-glider down.
- Or, possibly, part of the luck was that the released tether was long enough to drag on the ground (given the options for rope/chord, around that time, and possibly the spool it was unspooled from, before the spool itself was released (by accident/design)), and with a strong enough wind and a consistently 'draggy' free-tether, it maintained a kite-like flight profile for the suggested distance (never being any higher than when ground-tethered, but only very gradually losing its initial height), such that the CFIT at the end was a 'survivable' (legs first? kite-structure acted as an initial crumple-zone?) landing.
- Of course, it's at least partly a legendary account. Could be somewhat contrived from retellings and embelishments, 'originally' just being (out of many such 'experiments' with 'volunteers') a controlled rise that was then re-winched-in, conflated with what happened when the tether snapped/etc, during a particularly windy day, and where the resulting wreckage was discovered. I think it's possible it happened (and one might even be able to plan to re-enact it, with modern knowledge of aeronautics and hands-on experience with all the more recent methods and means of flying), but it sounds like it became known only because it was a memetic (and maybe composite) success, only having to compete with the few "glorious failures", not the many occasions where some basic idea (that may have eventually led to better ideas) just didn't work or notably fail. 172.70.160.195 14:52, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
11 paragraphs should be 5-7. 172.71.151.155 05:04, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
Just in case it’s relevant, since there’s a few comments here about ancient Chinese man-carrying kites: I went deep down a rabbit hole and the evidence for them having existed is significantly flimsier than an initial Google search makes it seem. All of the sources eventually just lead back to two quotes from two ancient Chinese historians, both describing one single supposed incident. And the story fits the extremely common apocryphal framework of “here’s this crazy way in which this evil king was cruel.” There’s no other evidence at all, that I can find. 172.69.70.199 (talk) 04:28, 31 January 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
Annotated the image here... Green line is "current absolute record" (assuming the truth of the plot), blue line is "highest height that will now always have someone higher" (again, going by the plot), red line is "record by a living individual" (based upon the plot, and several historical truths I could discern, but probably getting to be as much speculative as the original joke-plot-with-a-passing-basis-in-fact). 172.69.79.164 01:39, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
In 1966 there should be a peak above 1000km, the Gemini 11 flight, September 12-15, 1966, which reached an apogee of 1,374 kilometers. Rps (talk) 17:01, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
It seems like the graph is ignoring USSR's Space Station Mir. Per wiki, it was occupied for 12.5 years of its 15 year lifespan from 1986 to 2001. Honestly, feels like a weird thing to miss while including the ISS explicitly. 172.70.207.140 06:45, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
since it got removed in the last edit, here's iss height over time. change the start & end mjd to zoom in Regex user (talk) 11:15, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
Hmm, that edit did a lot of "tightening". And seemed to give up trying to tighten, by the end, merely chopping whole segments (it now gives the impression that there's just one alternate interpretation of the Title Text, instead of the several valid ones). Can't deny, some of the things I wrote in were excised, but I won't take it personally. Some bits seem random; e.g. it has lost the link to "hoist by one's own petard", whilst keeping the base phrase about gunpowder (strange choice, as the link doesn't add to word-count in that section), as well as now never really explaining why the (undocumentable) wind-blown record-holders are even significant. Could do with some (careful) editing back in. I admire the attempt, and I know it probably needed pruning from how it was, so I'm respecting the intention but pointing out that it might need a bit of selective re-adding (or paraphrasing) from the original. Leaving it up to less verbose types than myself, though (who are also not too laconic). 172.70.91.245 13:55, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
I was laughing so hard inside the moment I saw this comic. Well done, Randall. ⯅A dream demon⯅ (talk) 19:28, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
After 1940, there was surely never again one moment where no airplaine was significantly higher than 1km above the ground. Not during the war in Europe and Far East (surveillance planes!), certainly never afterwards. --172.68.193.135 19:16, 26 January 2025 (UTC)