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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."'"
"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.