In the early 1990s Bruce started the 'Skydive From Space' project, to skydive from the edge of space from 130,000 feet and break the highest altitude freefall record previously set by Joe Kittinger in the 1960s. He trained with Loel Guinness' High Adventure Company and Kittinger. The project was partially backed funded by NASA. As a part of it Bruce, Harry Taylor and scientist and astronaut Karl Gordon Henize, with an ascent team, climbed the North Ridge Route of Mount Everest in late 1993 to test a NASA meter called a tissue equivalent proportional counter (TEPC) at different altitudes (17,000 ft, 19,000 ft and 21,000 ft), the device measuring the effects upon the human body of radiation at altitude, which would be factored in for consideration of space missions of a longer duration. The expedition was abandoned after the death of Karl Henize from high altitude pulmonary edema on 5 October 1993. Although the expedition was cut short, NASA received the information it had been sent out to acquire from the meter's readings logged during the ascent.