Slashdot Mirror
Baumgartner's Daredevil Parachute Jump From Space Put On Hold
Velcroman1 writes "For years, an Austrian daredevil named Felix Baumgartner has been planning to take a 23-mile plunge from the edge of space — and in the process, become the first parachutist to break the sound barrier, plummeting toward the ground at 760 miles per hour. The engineers and scientists behind The Red Bull Stratos project, an effort to break the record for the highest freefall ever, billed the jump as more than a stunt. The leap from 120,000 feet was to yield volumes of data that would have been used to develop advanced life support systems for future pilots, astronauts, and even space tourists. But a promoter feels that the jump was his idea, and filed a lawsuit in April to prevent the event from taking place. And now Red Bull has pulled the plug on the project, FoxNews.com reports. 'Due to the lawsuit, we have decided to stop the project until this case has been resolved,' Red Bull said."
So if someone tells you to jump off a bridge, you're not allowed to do do it if they suddenly decide that no actually it was their idea and they want to keep it?
which is totally what she said
When saying "wouldn't it be cool to do a parachute jump -- from outer space!!11" gives you a monopoly on draining money off the people actually doing it, the concept of "intellectual property" really shows how childish and immature it is.
Prior art for the masses.
The promoter who claims it was his idea and Red Bull stole it is, as always, in it for the money. Red Bull should just abandon the whole thing leaving him with the square root of fuck all. It'd save them legal fees too.
while (true != false) process_more_stupid_code();
Ok fine! It's your idea...
Come on. You're going to space!
You need to be a daredevil to go around with a name like Felix Baumgartner. I'll be buggered if I would.
Nice to see TFA made a nod to Joe.
Not sure why it was omitted from the summary.
but 37 km is nowhere near space in my book. My personal boundary for space is the end of the Mesosphere. Official boundaries oscillate between 80 and 130 km.
Anyone else sick of ridiculous lawsuits? Can we get a public vetting vote for lawsuits to determine whether they are worthwhile or not?
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
This is what you get for promoting the idea of "Intellectual Property".
If you can, using IP, stop people from making and selling products, stop people from singing songs, stop people from telling stories that contain certain fictional characters. Then why not stop people from making a jump from space?
Oliver.
Is it possible that this guy could jump out of his plane and, rather than plummet, go into orbit? I want to know so that when I'm showing my kids the night sky I can point out Jupiter, Orion and Felix Baumgartner. Assuming, that is, this lawsuit goes away.
Is it possible for Slashdot to avoid the marketing-speak? Space begins 100km (62 miles) above sea level. 36km is not "the edge of space".
Baumgartner is (as the article says) Austrian, so is Red Bull... Ah, and by the way. The guy who sued Red Bull for 'prior idea' (or whatever) is named Daniel Hogan. More infos here.
To error is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the OS.
It was my impression that NASA already did this, and did it from a higher altitude.
Oh yeah and they did it 51 years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Excelsior
Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.
No one can tell me that others have not, at the very least, though about pushing the envelope for free falling from the edge of space and beating Air Force Captain Joseph Kittinger's previous record. Unless the promoter has filed for a patent on the idea of falling from that high, which I highly doubt (even if it is something that could be patented), I don't see what kind of legal claim the promoter would have. Truly, this sounds like an attempt at a greedy money grab. The Austrian skydiver, Felix Baumgartnen, is pretty crazy even considering a stunt like this, though. Breaking the speed of sound, which is apparently highly likely, without being inside an actual machine, is nothing to sneeze at. Plus, in the event of equipment failure, all kinds of fun physical maladies could appear, like the blood boiling and bleeding from the eyes due to low atmospheric preassure or freezing from -140F tempratures. You would think the promoter would be more concerned about the person actually taking the risk rather than his own bank account. But, I guess that would be too much to ask from the greedy corporate world.
The Joe Kittinger jump:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81gn2oLeC_U
3
This is why all Intellectual Property laws, with the possible exception of Trademarks, need to be systematically dismantled.
Starting now.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Uh, did this come from their "It really, truly is news!" side, or from their "It is just opinion." side? I think I better wait for independent verification.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Are you sure you don't mean "leap"?
Wait... I'm being informed by my attorney that "leap" is too significantly similar to "jump", which is already another's IP. I'm sorry for wasting your time.
For walking out of the front door. Seems as though there was some guy from 235 years ago that came up with the idea.
Go figure
GM scraps plans to launch its "Fuse" garbage-powered car, after receiving a call from one Robert Zemeckis.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Out of curiosity, is the sound barrier here defined as the speed of sound on earth, or the speed at the temperature of air 23 miles up?
The ______ Agenda
Can we push a lawyer out at 120,000 feet?
Now that 120 thousand feet doesn't sound like much if you can jump from 100 km. I wonder if somebody will try it from SpaceShipTwo?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
who the fuck keeps thinking it a good idea to cite Fox "News"?
In Austria???
This is not the sig you're looking for.
Short answer: No.
Long answer: as others have pointed out, speed is necessary to achieve orbit, and the balloon from which he will jump is essentially standing still over the earth. In those conditions, he would only be in orbit at the geostationary altitude, about 36000 km high, which is about a thousand times higher than he will be.
He's actually saying that his specific plans for executing the jump were used by Red Bull after they reviewed and rejected the project. Those plans wouldn't be protectable if they were open knowledge, but given that he was shopping the plans around privately, looking for a partnership, the plans constitute a trade secret.
Trade secrets are the antithesis of most IP law. Once an idea's "out there", the protection disappears, as it should.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Copyrights and patents NEED to remain. The problem with copyrights is that the shear greed is pushing for longer and longer time. And the issue with patents is that it went from physical manifestations that take long times to create, to being applied on software, and methods.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
According to the article, he was going to go to space using a weather balloon (and then jump into 23 miles of "nothingness")
For so many decades, nations have been spending huge amounts of money designing rockets and space shuttles, and now it turns out they could have just used a balloon!
Oh, good: another life saved.
FTA: Hogan claims the daredevil stunt would be worth $375 million to $625 million in advertising to any corporate sponsor.
If this type of lawsuit was as prevalent in the past, NOTHING would be accomplished.
Again, science and innovation are stifled by simple, unabashed greed.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Joseph Kittinger? Project Excelsior? 1960? Jumping from 102,000 feet? Pretty sure that gives the USAF the patent on "jumping from ludicrously high altitudes".
"but trade secrets don't have any actual protection under law"
They certainly do.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
But a promoter feels that the jump was his idea, and filed a lawsuit in April to prevent the event from taking place. And now Red Bull has pulled the plug on the project, FoxNews.com reports. 'Due to the lawsuit, we have decided to stop the project until this case has been resolved,' Red Bull said."
Lunatic claims he was the first to imagine the idea of freefalling from outer space, no doubt after viewing the intro to Mass Effect 2. Suicidal daredevil breathes sigh of relief, seeing a way out of this certain death stunt.
I'm an Austrian, and so far no Austrian news site has reported this. WTF.
What happens to a person's ear drums when going through the sound barrier with very little protection on? - I mean what's he going to be wearing - a helmet and maybe some ear plugs?
Yes, but 31km (19 miles) is only 20% short It seems strange that hold IP on the idea of breaking 50 year old record by only 20%
No, it's having forgotten to activate and reverse polarity of the deflector dish during re-entry that will kill you.
Mod parent to +5 Informative! Articles talking about Bumgartner's jump ALWAYS say it's the first supersonic skydive, like Joe Kittinger's jump never happened. I'm totally behind Bumgartner's jump but I hate this historical revisionism / severe media amnesia thing that's going on!
At least the media didn't forget about Yuri Gagarin when SpaceShipOne made its first space flight, so I'm hopeful they won't forget Apollo 11 when the first commercial moon landing takes place.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
So why not change the altitude to 121,000 and go on with it?
Strato quest was the idea of Cheryl Sterns, http://www.stratoquest.com/ she had tried to get funding for this project for many years before Red Bull apparently just took her idea. Very Lame move from Red Bull because Cheryl Sterns is more qualified for this jump. I believe that if Cheryl Sterns looked like Britney Spears, they would have used her. Red Bull is a publicity sell out.. its a shame.
Fox News, on Slashdot, I think I will puke.
That's why NDAs exist. If he had previously had Red Bull sign a contract agreeing to keep his ideas secret, then I would have nothing against him suing them for breach of that contract.
OTOH, if you tell someone "hey, listen to this, I had this great idea" you shouldn't complain if they use your idea. After all, you don't know, they may have come to that idea independently.
Contract law is good enough and strong enough for businesses, only lawyers profit from aggressive IP law interpretations.
Did the promoter invent any of the equipment involved? If so he might have a case for patent infringement.
Did the promoter create any expressive materials - writing, artwork, or music? If so, he might have a case based on copyright.
Is the jumper misusing the promoter's logo, name, or emblem? If so, there might be trademark infringement.
I suspect the answers are no, no, and no, respectively. In which case he can just go pound sand.
It's been done already.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ7N6V-YKJ8&feature=related
It's a publicity stunt. Now that Red Bull have your attention, they will wind up settling with the guy Baumgartner and the dive will proceed.
Only in America.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Wired magazine, August 2001.
If you google the names in the article you can see what happened to the folks mentioned in the last nine years. I wish there was a clickable "request followup" button on articles.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Today we'll see high's in the mid-70's, sunny with a chance of showering human tissue.
Some 10 years ago, this idea was the theme of a Star Trek Voyager episode about sub-orbital free fall skydiving. So you have to ask, where did the writer of that episode get the idea?
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real-time.
They did a space jump with a Corvette in Heavy Metal back in 1981.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
1) Go up really, really high above earth.
2) Jump off.
3) Profit!!!
Yeah, no one else would have been able to think of that.
In others words, a breach of contract dispute, not a "it was my idea" dispute. (Damn crappy Slashdot summaries!)
Thinking of things is my idea anyway so everybody JUST STOP IT!
Regarding Felix Baumgartner, from CNN:
The "Camera in Space" was even worse for CNN:
...
So it would seem that with CNN "Scientific accuracy is not their priority" either.
I recall reading about "ceiling" jumps before. Air Force Captain Joseph Kittinger did this back in 1960. A helium balloon took him to over 100,000 feet at which point he stepped off, falling at well above 700mph due to the lack of atmosphere. Modern ceiling jumpers use a kevlar bodysuit, if I recall, to distribute the heat caused by friction when you hit the air curtain and a modified scuba system that provides air. Jumping anywhere above the air curtain means you break the sound barrier because there is no terminal velocity restraint from air. How is this any different other than its a mile or two higher than previous jumps? This seems like bad reporting saying that this is somehow different than previous jumps.
Journalists are often prone to relativism simply because it allows them to make slightly more sensational claims in order to draw eyeballs. 17 miles up is closer to space than the vast majority of things on earth have been, so as far as they're concerned, it might as well be space.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
So CNN being wrong is just journalistic sensationalism (everybody does it), but Foxnews being wrong is because they are Foxnews?
My point was just the bias of claiming sloppy reporting on Foxnews (perceived as conservative) when CNN (perceived as progressive) does the same thing.
FWIW, I don't watch either of 'em.
The man filing the lawsuit is claiming Red Bull stole 'plans' from him and that he pitched the idea to them in 2004. He cannot patent or copyright jumping out of a plane in space, but because he pitched the idea to Red Bull and it will be a Red Bull event the economic and fiduciary factors of IP law apply. That is why the court is bothering to hear the case I suppose. Still, the court *has* to find for the defendant. If this guy wins it means someone can work on an idea and just pitch it to a company and then that company is bound to deal with that specific individual if they ever decide to go forward with the idea, even if only in essence.