Slashdot Mirror
Sonic Skydive's Real Aim Is To Help Astronauts Survive
mattnyc99 writes "Earlier this year came reports that Felix Baumgartner (the daredevil who flew across the English Channel) would be attempting to jump from a balloon at least 120,000 feet altitude, break the sound barrier, and live. Now comes a big investigative story from Esquire's issue on achieving the impossible, which details the former NASA team dedicated to making sure Baumgartner's Stratos project will instruct the future safety of manned space flight (including Jonathan Clark, the husband of an astronaut who died in the Columbia disaster). From the article (which also includes pics and video shot by the amateur space photographer we've discussed here before): 'that's also precisely what makes Stratos great. It's more like Mercury than the shuttle: They're taking risks, making things up as they go along. But they're also doing important work, potentially groundbreaking work. They're doing what NASA no longer has the balls to do. Hell, he'd do it for free. He is doing it for free. Stratos only picks up his travel expenses. Clark looks at his friend, shrugs. "This is new space."'"
For those who like this sort of thing, you might want to read up on Project Excelsior. Men have been doing those edge-of-space dives since the 60's. As part of that project, Joseph Kittinger jumped from 102,800 ft. Pretty amazing accomplishment for 1960 to even get up that high, much less jump from there.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
So wait. Was this 'Jonathan Clark' a woman? Or was the 'astronaut' gay? Is this a weird typo?
Jonathan Clark is the husband of a female astronaut.
Crap. The astronaut was a woman. I am such and accidental sexist.. :(
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
Are you dense? The astronaut was obviously a woman.
Perhaps the astronaut was a woman.
No, Jonathan Clark was the husband of Laurel Clark (the Mission Specialist who died aboard Columbia.
Are you for real? You do know that women can be astronauts too, right?
The crew of STS-107 consisted of 5 men and 2 women. One of those was Laurel Clark.
Troll?
There are female astronauts. Jonathan Clark was the husband of a woman named Laurel Clark. Laurel Clark was an astronaut.
Check it out.
That is all.
Due to privacy rights we wont know that for 75 years. But Columbia was a Science Mission and some of experiment trays survived re-entry. Some computer disks could even be read. I heard from talks by the P.I.s in my area there was about 75% experiment success rate and special publication of results. But most of that was due to telemetried data before the accident.
Darn, I was hoping he was gay. He was just poured into that shirt!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Uh...no...
He would be the husband of Cmdr. Laurel Clark, Mission Specialist on board Columbia. Cmdr. Clark was a woman.
I find it odd that the summary neither links to nor mentions the official project page. Perhaps the author has something against Red Bull (or that it uses MS Silverlight). In any case, this is the Red Bull Stratos project, not the Baumgartner Stratos Project. This is some pretty exciting stuff...Besides being totally bad-ass, Kittinger's original jump paved the way for manned space exploration. It may seem tacky to some, but credit should be given where credit is due, and as Red Bull is the primary sponsor of the project, they deserve to be mentioned.
Here is a music video by Boards of Canada, in which they show the original footage of Joseph Kittinger jumping from 102,800 ft. Much of the last part of the video is from something else, but the first part is real. It really is haunting to see him push off of the balloon platform.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
If they can actually get astronauts down from "space" with no vehicle, that is cool.
and it can probably help with efficiency (no worries about a return vehicle).
new sig
Jumping from a nearly stationary start at 100,000 feet is a very different proposition than reentering the atmosphere at orbital speed. Objects don't burn up just because they're falling through the atmosphere; they burn up because they're entering the atmosphere at very high speeds. I forget the exact value -- LEO isn't my specialty -- but objects in low Earth orbit are traveling somewhere north of 14,000 mph. (Meteors coming in from interplanetary space have even faster velocities measured in km/sec.) A high altitude jump like this may give us some useful data, but it does very little to pave the way for an individual descent from orbit.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Is this one of those projects like the X-prize, which keeps showing the same images year after year of rockets with bubble windows that will be commercially available "soon"?
No, s/he (or it from now on) just can't read very well. It thought that astronaut's name was 'Jonathan Clark'. Rather than Jonathan being the husbands name. And with Jonathan being a transitionally male name it's was confused and posted above...
They're doing what NASA no longer has the balls to do.
:%s/balls/funding
FTFY
"Before criticizing someone, first walk a mile in his shoes. Then, you'll be a mile away... and you'll have his shoes."
The phrase "I'm coming home!" may some day be a phrase that Major Tom may be able to support.
Just imagine doing this from the Virgin Galactic. You ride there and then you float out and "orbit dive" home. Obviously you would be in a separated compartment so when they open the doors you don't vent the rest of the craft.
"They're doing what NASA no longer has the balls to do."
It's not like an astronaut will be stepping out of a spacecraft at 100kft, he'll be burnt to a crisp and mangled by the air blast as his craft will still have considerable speed at that altitude.
If he's doing a personal (individual) recovery as suggested by another poster, then the astronaut will be riding in a small capsule and parachutes for slowing down small capsules are a long solved problem.
In short, with regards to space safety, this is pretty much a meaningless stunt as it has nothing in common with any but the most far fetched of scenarios.
There is the problem of descending from 120,000 feet with a parachute, which is solvable with space suits, multi-stage parachutes, etc.
Then there is the problem that this project would not address at all, which is how to decelerate from orbital speed of Mach 12 or so. The space shuttle that broke up on re-entry did so while it was going fast enough that the atmospheric friction would melt metal.
Bruce Perens.
You can see all of the Excelsior equipment at the Air Force museum in Dayton, in the round room with the missiles, farthest from the front of the museum, on the second floor. I always make a point of stopping there after Dayton Hamvention, and that's one of my favorite exhibits. There's also a nuclear missile command bunker, almost hidden in the museum, directly under the Excelsior capsules on the first floor which is also a great exhibit.
Bruce Perens.
You mean traditionally right? Sorry man I usually don't grammar-nazi on things.
That jumper better hope not....
Why the hell is it tagged with 'switzerland'? >:-(
"...would be attempting to jump from a balloon at least 120,000 feet altitude...
But they're also doing important work, potentially groundbreaking work."
I see what u did there.
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
Isn't there a terminal velocity at which the human body will no longer accelerate? How could he possibly break the sound barrier? Is it because the air is thinner in the upper atmosphere?
That's right. They need people to cook and clean in space to~
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"break the sound barrier, and live. "
not sure if this qualifies, but a supersonic bailout from a plane has been done decades ago from an F-100.
" In the first known case of a man surviving a supersonic ejection, George Smith(IIRC will be verified) ejected from an F-100 Super Sabre in a dive. It was known that he ejected supersonically due to eyewitnesses who heard and saw the ejection from nearby based on the sounds of the sonic booms and the visual clues of the crash. "
http://www.ejectionsite.com/ejectfaq.htm
"But they're also doing important work, potentially groundbreaking work."
Only if the parachute fails...
Just a few decades ago, and for thousands of years previous, there were very few great advancements that did not put someone's life in jeopardy. In my mind, that is where NASA went wrong.
I would wager we could build a space shuttle replacement for 1/10th the cost but with double of the failure rate and still have the best and brightest clamoring to get aboard!
Today, there are billions wasted and many opportunities to learn missed in an effort to prevent catastrophe. Though I understand the logic, I think that risk avoidance is what has brought so many exciting government, and private sector, programs to a slow crawl.
It wouldn't be difficult to find someone willing to travel to Mars on a low budget/high risk mission. Sure they may not come home, but they would go anyway. I'd bet you could find someone to take a one way flight to the outer solar system, just for the sake of exploration. A few hundred years ago, humanity had great respect for explorers and scientists who were willing to put their lives on the line for the sake of progress. How many discoveries were made when men and women risked, and often lost, their lives exploring uncharted territory, or trying risky experiments.
I applaud this effort and hope that people start realizing that there are 6 Billion people on this planet, one or two lives for the sake of progress is a small price... and one that would likely be paid willingly just to go down in history as "the first".
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
What's even more interesting is that if you watch the video when they finally get to Joe, he's sittin' on the ground smoking a cigarette LOL. Sounds funny today, but was common back then.
It is completely impractical to compare this with a space shuttle re-entering. The mass difference alone makes it a completely different problem. Also a space shuttle burns tons and tons of rocket fuel in exchange for altitude and velocity. This requires a lot of energy - energy that when it needs to return to Earth the space shuttle needs to get rid off, it does this by converting it to heat. For this project, a balloon is being used to provide the lift. This gives it the potential energy of height, but not the velocity needed to retain orbit. Once you take away the lift- you return to Earth. Coupled with the massive weight difference means there is no where near as much energy that must be converted into heat. A skydiver reaches terminal velocity as a result of their mass and surface area presented to the relative wind. Terminal velocity also depends on air density - altitude and temperature. So a skydiver can go faster by increasing their mass, reducing the cross-sectional area presented to the relative wind or jump from higher altitudes (or on warmer days). In fact even from an altitude of 13,000ft a skydiver will reach terminal velocity after 1000ft and then gradually slow down as the air density increases. Felix will be seeing this on a much grander scale - less air, higher terminal velocity but less friction. Also the speed of sound is slower at higher altitudes because the air is thinner. Some sources actually credit Joseph Kittinger with breaking the speed of sound at his altitude. There are various problems that must be solved for this to succeed, but I think its entirely possible and I am looking forward to seeing him pull it off.
I personally did about 15-17 Gs in a car accident 35 to 0 in about 2.5 feet. Broke 3 ribs on the typical 3point seat belt, and my wrist on the steering wheel. A racing harness would have got me thru w/o out any rib fractures.
Colonel John Paul Stapp often did 32 g and walked away often easily, and did 42G a bunch of times on his rocket sled experiments. Some race car drives have undergone 100G to 150 G in some of their crashes (with many broken bones).
I think the 12g/17G is referring to max force that people can withstand for minutes at a time. People often withstand much more instantaneously
..........FULL STOP.
And you got modded down to oblivion, for not first checking before you ask such a sensitive question.
Totally not worth it. I feel your pain, even though I try not to ask such bombshell questions.
- troll8901 (not logged in due to being at work)
Nice slashdot story. I was able to find further information here: http://www.astrobio.net/pressrelease/3452/supersonic-freefall
I'm not sure what's sadder - that you thought you were funny, or that someone else did.
hopefully they will put a camera on the heel of the jumper this time... would love to see a first person view of that jump (assuming he is going head first)
.... Isn't that Time Lord technology?
No I'm pretty sure that it's only a guys name for a few years, and then it'll become a girls name.
Is 1563649 a prime number?