Standard altitude-pressure tables allow mountaineers and aviators to determine their approximate height by measuring atmospheric pressure. This relationship also works inversely. The height of a ...

Atmospheric pressure at sea level is about 101,000 Pa (101 kPa) but just 27,000 Pa (27 kPa) at the cruising altitude of a passenger plane. Air pressure is due to the weight of air in the ...

Today’s high-tech spacesuit materials are a far cry from the cotton and rubber used by early high-altitude pilots. This story appears in the July 2019 issue of National Geographic magazine.