Skydiving from 25 Miles Up

chisox writes "The Observer has a story about a retired French army colonel who is soon to make a free fall parachute jump from 25 miles up. In the process he will break the sound barrier, reaching a top speed of mach 1.68 before he opens his parachute 1,000 metres above the Earth. Of course, if the chute doesn't open, the hole he'll make will be about 1,000 metres deep." Well, actually his max speed will be high up and near the earth the atmosphere will have slowed him down to terminal velocity.

Comments

Re:His Ears

[einhverfr]

I don't think his ears will be in the area which could experience the sonic boom. The sonic boom is actually a cone-shaped are where the sound becomes concentrated (because you are moving faster than it).

I am more interested in how much his suit would heat up if his chute doesn't open due to air resistance and decreasing terminal velocity.`

Re:Read the article

[Alrescha]

"it does make you wonder why something like this has not been undertaken by any government agency."

This has been done. I'm not sure why we forget. In 1960, Joe Kittenger jumped from ~20 miles, breaking the sound barrier. See:

http://www.dropzone.com/news/SpaceParachutingSky di vin.shtml

A.

ps: I'm sorry that /. injects a space in that URL.

kittinger - The longest leap

[Paul Jakma]

US Air Force Captain Kittinger made the previous world record jump in 1960 from 19 miles up. There's an archive of the Life story on it at:

http://www2.tsixroads.com/Corinth_MLSANDY/jk004. ht ml

including an amazing shot of him taken from the gondola from which he jumped:

http://www2.tsixroads.com/Corinth_MLSANDY/corint h_ images/jk20.jpg

Re:parachute necessary?

[NearlyHeadless]

I have always wondered if there were any examples (probably from war) of people bailing over the ocean with no/unopened parachute and surviving.

I haven't heard of any cases over water, but there have been a
few on land.