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Gliding Into the Stratosphere
iAlex writes "Apparently flying around the world in a balloon isn't enough for Steve Fossett. Currently he is attempting to exceed the sailplane altitude record of 49,000 feet. The intention is to fly a two seat glider into the stratosphere on a mountain wave while wearing a pressure suit. Later on the intention is to exceed 100,000 feet in a pressurized glider. There is also a Wired article." Here's a nutshell description of the plan and a primer on mountain waves.
That last line should read:
Here's a description of the nutcase's plan
Doesn't it seem like Fosset has *way* too much time and money on his hands? First the ballon, which is understandable, but now this? I can use some of your money Mr. Fosset. :-)
I'm so rich that I think I'm going to blow my money on breaking records for my personal glory rather than trying to help people in need or advancing technology to help everyone.
Seriously, I can't help but think that Mister Fosset could get significantly more head-rush for his money by doing something like sky-diving than building vast, record-breaking projects that have very little effect on advancing technology. Imagine for a second that, rather than attempting to circle the globe in a baloon eight or nine times, he had held back a few years, used the money to improve his balloon technology, and tried again with better technology than the same technology over and over again.
I'm a very firm beleiver that throwing money at problems doesn't make them go away, but if he had spent *half* the funds from his balloon venture on something like inner-city literacy campaigns or AIDS research, I can't help but feel like the world would be a better place.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
lol some1 emal me warez 4 windows xp k thx skaterd00dlol@aol.com
Anybody who has as much money as he does, and can't find anything better to do with it, doesnt deserve it...
I could find a lot of ways on the ground to burn through millions of dollars... and they would be a lot more fun than this...
My Stuff: pspChess and foobar2000 plugins
"Mountain Waves" had something to do with mountains attending sporting events. That would be sweet.
Read Justin Timberlake's "I banged Britney" homepage
tcd004
I think that this is a reasonably good demonstration of how money can't really buy you real sense of satisfaction or common sense for that matter. I'm astounded that anyone can have either that much time on their hands, money to waste or lack of a sense of self-preservation.
Death is a Bad Thing, umkay?
According to:
http://www.avpress.com/n/frsty2.hts
One of the companies providing components for him has been indicted for fraud. Turns out they were giving the Air Force some parts that were supposed to be clean room O2 grade components, eg, no waste that could react w/ pure Oxygen.
It seems they gave the parts an alcohol bath before delivery, then tried to fib their way out of it.
Whoops....
Hope his glider doesn't explode. That'd be ironic.
This guy reminds me of a comment I heard a long time ago, "He has more money then brains." Ever hear of collecting art or cars?
I'm a BBS orphan in a blogging world.
Records are made to be broken. I wonder if he can do it before someone else does? I personally would be spending my spare money on something else but if he wants to do it, so be it.
Some record breaking events are wonderful for the human race (first to fly across the ocean, first in space, first on the moon, breaking the sound barrier, etc...). These records open up science to a new realm that all of society will eventually benefit from.
Ballooning across the world (quick rant: honestly, it wasn't "across the world", because he did it on a very southern part of the globe. I can go to the south pole, walk in a circle, and claim I walked around the world!)? Having the highest flying glider?
Surely there's better things that can be done with that money...
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I know its not doable due to basic physics. Still, a geek can dream.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I'm afraid he will die.
NASA, being hesitant to waste any of their very very expensive space & upper atmosphere craft have secretly brought on a contractor to test what would happen if an aircraft made of very expensive materials lost pressure in the stratosphere and plummeted to the earth.
The competeing schools of thought have theorized many possibilites, but there remains only one way to test it... to crash such an aircraft
In unrelated news, NASA's experiment dropping a pressurized balloon cabin from high altitudes failed when a $5 blow-bolt froze, and would not release the heated cabin. No sources have yet come forth to find out what manner of monitoring NASA will have onboard these "crash tests"
- Jones
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
Maybe he'll run into Rocketguy Brian Walker, and it'll be a 2-for-1 Darwin Award.
Whats up with all this class warfare? Do I sense a little envy here at slashdot? Its his money, let him decide what to do with it. None of you are in a position to criticise him for how he chooses to spend *his* money.
I don't know whats worse. This guy blowing all that money doing stupid stuff, or just the fact that slashdot keeps posting the crap.
What else do we expect from wealthy people seeking meaning and excitement nowadays?
Haven't all the great philanthropic quests been completed by Bill Gates?
sPh
I love the speculation in the last paragraphs of the Wired article "The Omarama attempt may also yield new scientific information. . . " Reminds me a great deal of the stories about John Glenn's "mission" on the space shuttle, and all the "science" they would gather from sending an older man into space.
I think it'd be a blast to ride the glider, and if I had the money and the skill I'd try it too, but to sell one man's stratospheric ego trip as an important mission of science is just silly.
Someone should tell Steve Fosset about an invention called the "aeroplane". For a fraction of the cost he is incurring now, he can fly around the world as many times as he wants. And what's more, he will get complimentary peanuts too!!!
All your favorite sites in one place!
The WIPO Troll lives?!
Bob Bell - I apologize.
sPh
Man falls from highest recorded height wearing a blue pressurized jumpsuit.
See kids? When you do not get enough oxygen to your brain it destroys living cells and makes it difficult to think normally. It's much cheaper to huff a can of spray paint then to float at the edge of the atmosphere.
(Note to mods this is a joke not a troll).
I've figured it out:
He's trying to commit suicide, but in a way that will get him noticed.
The balloon attempt failed when the original charted course over hostile SAM sites was foiled by adverse winds.
However, this time he's got some control.
And even if -this- fails, he's got plans to take a satellite with him.
With my dying breath, I curse Zoidberg!
Personally, I don't think this should qualify as circumnavigating the globe. Magellan's route almost 1500 years ago is a heck of a lot more impressive.
"Why should we leave America to go to America Junior?" - H. Simpson, on visiting Canada
I think this glory-seeking, self-congratulatory stunting is really inappropriate.
If he had a societal concience he would take the zillions of dollars he is spending on this show-boating and give back to his community, in the form of a scholarship trust fund, or a new health care clinic, etc.
When I see this guy on the front page of the newspaper, it makes me really angry. I mean, who really cares if some rich guy goes high up into the atmosphere?
I don't want to be here.
Why in the world was this posted under 'science' ? I see nothing related to research, scientific advancement or academia in this story.
Sure, you THINK money falling out of your ass would be great, but believe me, it's not! I can't leave the house for more than an hour, because my pants fill up with dollar bills and the coins! The coins, oh boy, passing those bad boys is a literal pain in the ass. Sure, pennies, dimes, etc are pretty easy, but those dollar coins! Ouch! And the Susan B. Anthony's! WOAH! And, then, of course, there's the money laundering that's necessary. Sigh...
Moral of the story: Be careful what you wish for.
Goatse from space!
Why is the media so on about this millionaire and his 'adventures'? I think the real record he's going for is the highest newspaper column inches to importance ratio.
"Almost" 1500 years ago? Yeah, as in the almost being "well... just a bit over a thousand years short of"...
I can't believe people take this stuff seriously. For those who flunked physics (apparently the entire Slashdot readership), I'll spell it out for you.
Gliders cannot fly. Airplanes only go up because their jet engines push off the atmosphere. The wings allow them to glide to conserve fuel. In a pure glider (i.e., a plane with no engines), you can pretty much just slow down your descent, and maneuver a little bit on the way down. Trying to get a sailplane into the stratosphere is going to be about as successful as trying to throw a paper airplane into orbit.
It's basic conservation of energy. The higher you go, the more gravitational potential energy you have. The difference has to come from somewhere, and gliding ain't it.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Sigh. You just had to give the wave tutorial link showing the single-engine aircraft thrashing about in the nasty turbulence of a rotor cloud. Try this link from a soaring perspective instead. Wave is the best type of lift and can only really be appreciated in a sailplane.
An issue for Fossett will be the aircraft's stall speed increasing as his altitude increases (thin air up high). I don't know the specs on his DG505 sailplane, but I'd guess at >50K' the stall speed gets darn close to Vne (max. not to exceed true airspeed).
In the spirit of Marvel comics, let's hope that Mr. Fosset finally succeeds in going "up, up, and away..."
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
I see a lot of similarity in the two paths, except that they are plotted on different map projections. The only major difference I see is that Magellan had to go south from spain to get to the short-distance-cause-its-near-the-pole route.
Also note that Fosset did it without stopping. I count at least eight places where Magellan's expedition went to shore.
A legparnasom tele van angolnaval.
Steve Fossett is an example of what happens when rich people aren't smart enough to create their own (evil?) empire with their resources cou(GATES)gh!! but have an ego that requires them to put their name on something (e.g. record books) that will last longer than their meager existence.
That said, it is his money. Who am I to complain?
-- Scientist: You aren't going to leave me here, are you? Boagh! Thump...
Reading the posts so far, I notice a lot of what I can only describe as 'sour grapes'. (see Aesop's fables)
Most of us spend drab, dreary, lives merely trying to put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads. If we had double our income we'd go on holiday more, buy a better car, move to a nicer neighbourhood, etc.
If we had ten times our income, we'd do pretty much the same, perhaps with a little empire building or nut squirrelling on the side.
If we had a thousand times our income then of course we'd be made but we'd have to start finding imaginative uses for the cash.
We could address world poverty, couldn't actually achieve very much in that area but we could make ourselves feel better by donating a couple of million each year.
Steve Fosset is in a position nowhere near good enough to fix world poverty but plenty good enough to achieve ambitions that many of us would have if only we weren't so busy merely staying alive.
He gives us something to look forward to, something to admire, something that will probably still be being commented on in a thousand years.
Don't knock it, how do you know that you wouldn't do the same thing in his shoes.
No, I don't think your forefathers would have phrased the roots of freedom quite in those words.
Second, this is as good a reason as any to develop new light weight space suits for space travel.
Third, there is still a hell of a lot of meterology that remains unknown at those altitudes. Sailplanes have made it up to roughly Flight level 450, but they had to stop climbing because the pilots weren't equipped to go much higher. Nobody really knows how high mountain waves can take us.
This is a better exploration for Steve Fossett than his balloon stunts. If he's successful not only will he have made new discoveries, but he may also have found a way to get humans in to orbit very inexpensively.
When you think about all the stupid things people waste their money on, I think one can excuse Steve Fossett for actually planning and executing an aviation Nerd's fantasy trip.
Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
I have flown a glider gaining altitude with out redusing speed, which in your over simplified view is imposible.
The air you mentioned passing over his wings moves (wind) at many altitudes, sometimes up and down. The way you fly a sailplane up, is to circle in air that is rising faster than you are falling relative to the air.
BTW the best (clear) days for glider flight, are the worst for powered flight. All that rising air generates that choppy ride that all those wimps who need engines hate.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
A long time ago, the spirit of adventure pushed man to attempt the seemingly impossible. Surfing to the freakin stratosphere without an engine isn't exactly what I'd call an easy task.
I guess all we care about these days is ROI.
All work and...???
-=sig=-
Sorry, I meant almost 500 years ago.
"Why should we leave America to go to America Junior?" - H. Simpson, on visiting Canada
Perhaps this one will do him in and the Oracle Big Brother he's developing for the government will never see the light of day.
There may be no "I" in team, but there's also no "F" in way.
I don't understand why slashdot would waste bandwidth giving this self obsessed glory hound more publicity. It's bad enough that the mass media reports on his acts of folly, but I never expected to see a slashdot article about him.
I hope someone mistakes his stupid glider for a U2 spyplane and shoots it down. I've been rooting for this fucker to go down in flames from the very first time that I heard about his stupid attempts at breaking some silly ballooning record.
I think he can do whatever the hell he wants to with his money, but I don't think his attempts at "records" should be reported as though they mean anything to anyone other than Fosset and other ballooning goofballs, or in this case glider enthusiasts. I mean, how many people give a fuck about ballooning or gliders? Why is this bullshit always covered by the media as though it has some real inportance?
True, but he was following the ocean because he that was the only way to sail. Fossett didn't have that restriction - his balloon sails over land just as well as sea. Now I will admit that he was at the mercy of the air currents, but I guess I'm not willing to say just because the air currents took him on a short route that it qualifies.
"Why should we leave America to go to America Junior?" - H. Simpson, on visiting Canada
What I want to know is why is it news when somebody rich does something? I remember all those stupid balloon stunts by Richard Branson and his ilk. Finally somebody soloed around the world and I thought the madness would stop. But no. Now we are treated to the escapades of millionaire morons in gliders or space capsules. If they want to flush their money, let 'em. But stop giving them airtime for pointless records. Let them set new speed or new fuel efficiency records in a commercially useful aircraft, or new cargo dirigible records or something that is of use to the world. Then give them press. But these "accomplishments" don't need to be celebrated. Or even noted.
And can somebody tell me why there's a space between the "o" and the "n" in "taxation" in the first paragraph? At least it shows up that way in the preview and I don't get it.
--
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
Q:How many libertarians does it take to stop a Panzer division? A:None. Obviously market forces will take care of it.
It must be nice to have that kind of dough where he can do whatever his pea size brain might think of...
He was following the rules.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
It never ceases to amaze me at the things the /. collective can come up with.
Here's a guy who is risking his life doing something no one has ever done before, being busted on because he isn't sending 10,000 children in Africa to school, or because he gets all sort of publicity hyped up about his attemps.
And yet, people on here will praise the next dork who comes along and cuts a hole in his computer's case. Oooo, maybe he's got a neon light in it. Thats really innovative, nothing like the boring, redundant attempt to fly an unpowered machine higher than virtually any human alive will ever go.
Maybe I should repent because I burned through $300 worth of brake pads and $200 worth of gas a couple weeks ago driving my car around on a race track. Thats, God, twelve or thirteen children I could've sent to school. Shame on me.
The "taxatio n" problem is cause by an attempt to fix an annoying problem. Some people type really long phrases without spaces. These phrases can't be word wrapped on IE. Some friends of the first posters post words 500 characters long. It can make reading comments almost impossible.
'SBEMAIL!' is better than a goat!!
And if "they" can tell one of the richest men in the world what to do with his money, "they" sure as hell can do it to any one of us.
What is music when you despise all sound?
I mean it's a glider and it was in space, ....
I fly RC aircraft, mainly small sailplanes, etc. This talk of mountain waves reminds me of dynamic soaring, which is a technique birds (and sailplaners) use to increase speed -- without flapping wings.
:)
In fact, sailplanes can often reach 150 MPH using this technique. And thats with no propellor. Needless to say, it's fast and exciting. Also, for those of us who like it when things go "boom", a critical failure at 150 MPH is always fun
big 'ol realplayer dynamic soaring video
thelocust[dot]org
"Obviously we can't go around the equator"
...
Why the hell not - it seems the ideal. Ability to stay on the equator due to winds etc, the equator should be the goal, not explained away with the words "obviously not"
....this guy must have one hell of a small wanger, if he has to keep spending such ridiculous amount of money on what amounts to little more than creating memories for himself.
Thanks for the tip on the trollbusting. I knew about that particular troll but didn't think about the solution.
Q:How many libertarians does it take to stop a Panzer division? A:None. Obviously market forces will take care of it.
Thanks for the link. Seems he played by the rules. So I guess I'm not all that impressed by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale rules themselves. Maybe they know best, but I think someone who follows a true great circle deserves recognition.
"Why should we leave America to go to America Junior?" - H. Simpson, on visiting Canada
Can't imagine you'll have much lift as you get to the stratosphere...
He should be really careful about hitting a wormhole up there. It happened to a guy named Crichton, and he got shot into a strange place with aliens.
What? Farscape ISN'T real? Bummer...
Black holes are where God divided by zero
sPh
Those greedy SOB's. They could help hundreds of people, but instead they wasted their time and money trying to fly. Humans aren't supposed fly, if we were we've have wings!
Should he be able to do what he wants with his wealth? Sure. It is his money, after all. If it was me, I might do "stupid" stuff with my money, too, but I'd like to believe that I'd have some social responsibility about it at the same time. I would truly admire a person who held the world record for both the longest balloon ride and personally teaching the most people to read in a life time.
When some measurement in feet is large, we use the *mile* which equals 5280 feet. If you sick people are going to measure heights in "kilofeet", you might as well use the metric system altogether.
> But again, who cares?
Thanks. I was starting to think I'm the only person bored 5417less with the incessant media coverage of how some rich fart pisses off his money.
I eagerly awaited the completion of his balloon trip, but only because I thought that would be the last I heard of him.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
A small correction; Magellan's expedition was around 1500, i.e. about 500 years ago.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
I received my license flying at Minden, Nevada... which is, I think, the home of the current altitude record. The 49,000 foot record was flown without a pressure suit but with oxygen; anything above about 13,000 feet MSL is done on oxygen.
/. posters have any idea of the concentration required just to keep a glider aloft for longer than it would normally take to glide back to earth. It's not at all unusual to get a sailplane above 13,000 feet (which is why virtually all sailplanes come equipped with an oxygen system... unlike most powered planes).
Flying a sailplane (glider) is one of the most intense things I've ever done. Few
Glider pilots fly for the personal satisfaction of pitting their skills against gravity and nature. It's non-polluting except for the ten minutes or so it takes to get the glider to 3,000 feet above ground level, it's relatively inexpensive (my sailplane - with a 39:1 glide ratio cost me $12,000 including trailer and instrumentation).
But an altitude record which now requires pressure suits and/or pressurized aircraft takes more money than most of us have available. This guy is truly risking his life for a project that, in my mind, is valuable if only for the fact that its challenging. The collection of data on using the atmosphere to perhaps save fuel on future airliners is even more incentive.
So hell, I say "bravo" to anyone willing to go try it.
PS: My other hobby is white water kayaking... and I'll be 60 years old next March.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Algorithm
How many times must this be said, democracy is a system in which the people are allowed to direct the actions of the government. There is no contradiction between democracy and socialism or communism for that matter. Canada is a democracy because their citizens were able to choose to how to run their medical system, they chose a socialised medical system,(which works better than ours by the way). China has a large free market now, but they are not a democracy because citizens aren't allowed to make meaningful decisions about how to run the government. Further more, America (and Canada too I suppose) is not a democracy exactly, more of a republic, just to get the terminology correct, because we elect representatives who direct the government on our behalf.
Simple explanation: there are vertical currents in the atmosphere, just like there are horizontal ones (we call those winds). All a glider pilot has to do is to stay out of sink, and find lift. The lift can be thermal (warm air rises), slope (wind blowing against a ridge goes up) or wave (stronger winds across long mountain ranges generate standing waves on their lee side extending upwards to many times the height of the mountain).
How do you think the current glider altitude record of 50,000 feet was achieved?
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
The Tomahawk can also hover -- just take it down to min airspeed with enough headwind.