http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6714639/ns/technology_and_science-...

Henry Spencer reckons it's been seriously considered all the way back, and he invented regular expressions, so, er, well apparently being a computer scientist gives you parachute credibility this week:

http://yarchive.net/space/launchers/personal_reentry.html

And there's some intriguing work from various people about using tethers as highly unconventional parachutes:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/00945765950...