STEVE FOSSETT, the billionaire who has made his name setting flying and ballooning world records, is planning his most extreme adventure yet.

He plans to “sail” a glider to 100,000ft and the edge of space, double the existing altitude record for a glider. He will wear a space suit, and scientific support is being provided by Nasa, the American space agency.

Fossett has been criticised for gathering records for their own sake — at the latest count he had more than 50. Earlier this month he recreated the first transatlantic flight by John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown in a replica of the British pair’s 1919 Vickers Vimy biplane.

He maintains that Nasa’s involvement shows his latest escapade has real scientific value. “I see in gliding a series of enormous — and very worthwhile — challenges,” he said.

Fossett, who is providing the £3m projected cost of the mission, said: “Altitude, efficiency and endurance are all significant issues for everyone in aviation. This is exploration — this is good science.”

The team has the assistance of Edward Teets, a Nasa meteorologist, Jim Murray, a Nasa engineer who has developed data-gathering instruments for the project, and former Nasa meteorologist Elizabeth Austin “One of the many reasons for the collaboration with this is the importance to Nasa of aircraft studies,” said Austin. “At 100,000ft the atmosphere is believed to be similar to that on the surface of Mars and the information we could find from this could be invaluable.”

Fossett and his co-pilot Einar Enevoldson, a former Nasa test pilot, plan a trial in a smaller glider made of carbon fibre called Perlan 1 this autumn. They intend to fly to an altitude of 60,000ft above the southern tip of Argentina and beat the existing record of 49,009ft set in 1986 over the Sierra Nevada in California.

The full 100,000ft climb in the larger Perlan 2 craft is planned for 2007, also over South America. The name Perlan derives from an Icelandic word meaning pearl and describes a type of cloud seen at high altitudes.

Above 100,000ft, the air is too thin for a glider to fly conventionally on normal air currents. Instead, the Perlan 2 will “sail” upwards, using its 100ft wingspan to catch the polar vortex which produces a powerful updraught reaching 100,000ft above high mountain ranges.

“It is like surfing an escalator. You go up to one level and then you catch a stream that takes you up another level,” said Enevoldson.

In both flights the gliders will be towed by aircraft to between 2,000 and 10,000ft to enable them catch the vortex and fly to altitudes that require space suits and oxygen.

Fossett, 61, who made his fortune on the Chicago futures exchange, has already become the first man to circle the world solo in a balloon, beating Sir Richard Branson.

Earlier this year he became the first person to make a solo round-the-world flight in an aircraft without refuelling. Branson, who financed that record, has called him “the greatest adventurer alive”.

Dick Hallion, the US military’s chief air force historian, agreed. “Steve is a remarkable individual who has a real passion for aviation and is willing to put the resources into it. He keeps the heroic image of aviation alive.”

Enevoldson said: “Much of what Steve has done so far has involved slight improvements on what has been done in the past, but this is unprecedented. It will be 15,000ft higher than any plane has flown in sustained flight.”

One curious drawback, however, is that neither pilot expects to get much of a view at 100,000ft.

According to Enevoldson, on their ascent they will see both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. But due to a quirk in atmospheric conditions the view will blur when they hit their maximum height.

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