Slashdot Mirror
Around the World In 14 Days
An anonymous reader writes: "Adventurer Steve Fossett succeeded Tuesday on his sixth try to pilot a balloon solo around the world, crossing the meridian where he started his historic journey June 19, his ground crew at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, announced. Here is the official site, while there's also several other articles, including this one."
Now we don't have to hear about him trying and failing anymore!
Silver only because he went around an easy part of the world, basically he mostly just circled Antarctica. Heck, you could go to the south pole and walk in a circle and say you've been around the world ;) But still its not a small feat and I congradulate him on it. It would have been a gold star for making it around a lot closer to the equator but then I can understand why he gave up on that, what with countries like China and such refusing to let him cross their airspace...
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
What's the point? Those ballooners have blown millions of dollars to do this. Why? Plus, as a previous poster pointed out, did he really go around the globe? I say they should have to cross the equator once on each side of the earth, say within a 1000 mile buffer zone.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Not a great circle, but about 17% shorter.
"Adventurer Steve Fossett"? This must be the first report I've seen in years that didn't say "Multi-Millionaire Steve Fossett". I had become convinced that Steve was his middle name.
In other news, Bud Light Scientists recently announced they were nearing the end of their ground breaking high altitude sleep deprivation beer party study.
Branson never attempted the flight solo. He was pipped on the circumnavigation by some other team, and Fosset then went alone to become the first to do it solo.
Official rules as to what constitutes a flight which is a real circumnavigation are on the site, it has to be between the two 30 degree meridiens basically... in any case it will not be ratified until some weeks have passed.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
The Earth is about 24,000 miles around, and he's about 8,000 miles short of that. Obviously, as you said, if he had gone on a 15-minute 1-mile trip around the South Pole, nobody would have considered it a round-the-world trip. At what point does it count?
Sure, he set a record for the longest distance solo flight, I'll give him that.
That you have to survive the landing for 48 hours, something that Fosset has thus far not demonstrated.
There was joke going around during the construction of Rutan's Voyager round-the-world-nonstop-nonrefueled plane, back in the mid 80's. Nothing was spared to reduce weight on that project, because every pound of additional structure required six or seven pounds of additional fuel, requiring more structure, and so on. Unfortunately, that philosophy turned the cockpit into a bit of a hellhole. The saying was, though, that any more than 48 hours of survival was excess design capacity; unneeded for the record attempt.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
In sailing circumnavigation is defined as crossing through the same start finish point and also the point of the earths surface you get by drawing a straight line from your start point through the center of the earth.
Steve Fossett would know this due to the fun he's had with his PlayStation.
Man with too much money has finally accomplished a completely useless feat after only 5 previous attempts to do so.
What a great day for humanity.
Don't you think that Mr. Fossett has endured enough without the criticism being heaped upon him by the Slashdot crowd.
You have no idea how stressful and agonizing it is being a millionaire dilettante, having to indulge yourself constantly with testosterone and ego-enhancing 'sports' like yachting and ballooning.
Feel his pain.
It appears that the rules for balloon flights are established by The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI):
http://www.fai.org/ballooning/rtw2-98.asp
There's lots of interesting info on their website at http://www.fai.org/
It's a good read, if for no other reason than gaining the ability to drop "homologation" into your next conversation.
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
They could change a small country that is dying off due to starvation or lack of water but what do they spend their money on. Balloons.
And you could sell your PC and give the money to the Peace Corps to buy a few dozen more bags of grain, but what do you spend it on? Asinine Slashdot posts.
Wealth is relative. You're ridiculously rich compared to the starving children you mention, and somehow I doubt you're lifting a finger to do much of anything about it. What you really mean is that you want him to spend his fabulous wealth on you and what you want, isn't it? Give all his money to the poor so you don't have to feel like you have to?
I'll bet you I'm more tired of hearing from people who think they have the right to determine what other people should own. When it comes right down to it, you probably think that anyone who has more than you has too much. Nevermind that the person who signs (or will sign) your paychecks probably has a helluva lot more than you. Should we take what he has and give it away so you can be laid off?
The world is crawling with people who think you have too much and are perfectly willing to kill you in order to take it from you.
slashdot broke my sig
Ground crew. People who made the balloon, equipment, and supplies.
It's like the space program -- people act as if the money is just shot into space and lost. It wasn't -- it is spent on the designers, builders, support crew.
Whether or not those people should have considered getting "real" jobs is another question which you seem to know the answer to. I personally would rather they got it than some jacknape too lazy to get off his ass and look for a job. And if it comes down to a spacecraft or balloon engineer or ground crew, vs someone equally deserving in some other country, I'd just as soon it went to the locals.
Infuriate left and right
Millionaire pounds "me first" record into submission. A world yawns...
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
"He's going to try to put down some place safe. A safe landing is the key to everything right now," says the Sydney Morning Herald
The print version of the story goes on to describe a safe landing was a large open area, dotted with a few trees to avoid dragging him around.
The catch ? He was planning on flying over the Nullarbor plain in Western Australia. Nullarbor is not Australain Aboriginal - it means "No Trees" in Latin for obvious reasons.
So they are going to skip that, stay south and will probably hit South Australia in a couple of hours, continuing to clock up the miles.