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

There ya go again...

[Bollie]

For the sane people out there... here's some unit conversions:

25 Miles = 40.2336 Kilometers
1.68 Mach [dry air, 273 Kelvin] = 2005.6498391999999 kilometers/hour

For the insane people out there... here's some unit conversions:

1 Kilometer = 0.621371 Miles
12 Inches = 1 Foot
3 Feet = 1 Yard
1 Mile = 1,760 Yards
1 Mile = 5,280 Feet
1 Miles = 63,360 Inches

Just to give you a taste of some saner things:

1000 millimeter = 1 meter
100 centimeter = 1 meter
1000 meter = 1 kilometer

But wait! There's more!

1000 milliliter = 1 liter
100 centiliter = 1 liter
1000 liter = 1 kiloliter

Just go to onlineconversions and have fun!

Stamps?

[ComaVN]

I sold (...) my stamp albums (...)

So this guy regularly jumps from perfectly functional aircraft, and collects (collected) stamps!?!?

I guess you've got to get your kicks somewhere.