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Baumgartner Completes 13.5-Mile Free-Fall Jump, Aims For Record
An anonymous reader writes "On Thursday Felix Baumgartner climbed into a capsule carried by a balloon, floated up to 71,500 feet, and jumped out. He free-fell through the atmosphere for almost four minutes, hitting an estimated top speed of 364 mph. 'I wanted to open the parachute after descending for a while but I noticed that I was still at an altitude of 50,000ft,' he said. After finally deploying his chute, he fell for a bit over four more minutes, before successfully touching down in the New Mexico Desert. This was a test to prepare him for a jump of 120,000 feet later this summer, during which Baumgartner will break the record for highest free-fall jump — and the sound barrier. '... a 36-pound spacesuit is all that separates Baumgartner from a hostile world that would boil the blood in his body. Baumgartner will wear a chest pack crammed with data-hungry instruments to help ground controllers monitor the attempt — and log scientific data. Some will keep tabs on his heart rate and oxygen intake to see how a body in a spacesuit reacts to a boundary no one has broken (and lived to tell the tale): the speed of sound.'"
At what altitude did Yuri Gagarin jump from Vostok?
Also, Hemos is my homeboy.
... and then he breaks the speed record?
Why haven't they published a video of the jump? Just some footage of him at the capsule and that's all.
Whether it's a record or his body, something is going to get smashed.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
The braking from supersonic phase is going to be interesting.
Ordinary parachuting maxes out around 200km/h. Back in the 1960s, the last time a 100,000+ foot jump was tried, someone hit 998km/h. They did not have an easy ride down.
I seem to recall that even in vacuum, the elasticity of your skin can supply the vapor pressure of your blood, so I think claims about blood boiling are bunk.
...but it makes sense when one considers how long it's been since we were really going full-tilt at doing this kind of research in the public sector. (Every time I see it, this xkcd leaves me a little more depressed about our willingness, as a population, to go to the risks and expenses necessary to accomplish great things).
Serious kudos to Red Bull for sponsoring this -- it's a happy day when one person's marketing budget is another person's research budget, and I sincerely hope both the PR people and the research people get the results they're looking for.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Kittinger
If this works, maybe the people who were designing things like the MOOSE orbital bail-out system weren't as crazy as everyone thought....
(see: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/moose.htm )
Check out Treesandthings.com for offbeat news
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Excelsior
Been there, done that... Neither one seems like a new record to me... Previous record seems to be around 102,000 ft and top speed of 614 mph...
So the next jump, yeah... But this one? No dice.
Is his body an open vessel? 'Cause it's the only way to 'boil the blood in his body' by exposing said body to low pressure.
I'd like to point out that your blood doesn't boil in a low pressure environment, even if that's a vacuum. As it's contained by your skin and tissues that are rather noncompliant tissue and thus maintain a certain level of internal pressure.
However, the starling forces are severely disrupted, resulting in oedema of any exposed tissue, this however can be compensated for by using skin tight clothing. NASA did in fact once research a wet-suit like space suit that wouldn't be pressure sealed, concept was good, however, if the suit is kinked and the pressure is relieved you get oedema, and this is hard to prevent in regions such as around joints and crotch.
What are the odds he'll end up as a large smear on the ground?
There have been several people going supersonic in the atmosphere, after high speed ejections from military aircraft. Supposedly some even jumped out at Mach 3, though as that was during secret tests I'm not sure the details were ever disclosed officially. This would be the first to accelerate to supersonic speed in free fall, not the first to go supersonic.
http://www.ejectionsite.com/ejectfaq.htm
So basically hipsters can jump from 100,000+ feet safely?
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
I'm pretty sure Joseph Kittinger broke the sound barrier on his space jump.
The Digital Sorceress
What's really cool is the Col. Joe Kittinger (who has the record of 102,000+ feet since I was 2) is his biggest fan & supporter. Joe did it old school...just throw on a G-suit, space suit, parachute and jump. When he landed, he popped out a lighter & smoked a cigarette LOL. Times have changed. That HQ photo of Baumgartner standing on the edge of the capsule is my unlock screen on my phone. Cool picture. Hope they do one at 120K feet.
http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/content/2012/0316-supersonic-skydiver-baumgartner/12036629-2-eng-US/0316-Supersonic-Skydiver-Baumgartner_full_600.jpg
I'm jealous - and wish him best of luck breaking that record(s)
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
It's the sudden stop.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
For those who haven't seen it, Boards of Canada (an ambient music group from Scotland) put some footage of Kittiger's famous jump into one of their music videos. It's pretty neat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lEsLcGB7Vo
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
I'm surprised that it is possible to get "supersonic". Perhaps that just means exceeding the speed of sound, at sea level? I thought it took significant energy to penetrate the shock-wave that gave it the name the "sound barrier"...
Heat shrink wrap?
So basically hipsters can jump from 100,000+ feet safely?
As long as you don't mind severe oedema in your crotch.
As far as I'm concerned, yes.
Falling from whatever altitude results in hitting thicker air at 95000 feet and deceleration to transonic at 35000 feet and shortly thereafter to subsonic. A free falling man has a terminal velocity of under 300 MPH (500 fps). Check with U.S. Rockets for the next record to easily break. They have software.
The best part will be when he breaks the time barrier and lands in 1956. At that point, a farmer will shoot him then shout "I got myself a Russky. Martha, call the sheriff!"
It's a good stunt, but science? If anybody really wanted the data they'd just drop the suit without the man in it. If there's still any concern about un-identified paramaters necessary to support life (which I doubt) they could always go the monkey/dog route again. (Granted, Kittinger himself says otherwise in the article, but I still don't see it).
NASA did in fact once research a wet-suit like space suit that wouldn't be pressure sealed, concept was good, however, if the suit is kinked and the pressure is relieved you get oedema, and this is hard to prevent in regions such as around joints and crotch.
So what if they made it an actual wet suit and filled it up with jello? Liquids equalize pressure and all. Of course, might as well fill it with air, at that point, but I wonder if there would still be advantages.
From TFA: "Thirty seconds after leaping, he’ll exceed the speed of sound in the thin upper atmosphere by traveling almost 700 miles per hour."
The speed of of sound in the upper atmosphere is _not_ 700 miles per hour. That figure relates to the speed of sound at one atmosphere and normal temperatures and also has to consider partial pressures including water vapor. In the upper atmosphere, the speed of sound is much less.
Claims similar to this over the years that the space shuttle is traveling at Mach 25 are just as ill-informed, since the "mach" number is supposed to be based on local conditions, not at some hypothetical place on a beach (one atmosphere, nice temperatures). It is wrong to simply divide some velocity by the speed of sound at sea level and then apply it to conditions present at the object's location.
The last bit about nobody living to tell the tale about supersonic free-fall is badly incorrect. Multiple military pilots have ejected while supersonic, at relatively low altitudes (below 50,000 ft to as low as approximately 10,000 ft) making it a horrifically violent experience. Many died during the supersonic ejection but some lived, even some who were clothed in only the basic military issue nomex flight suit.
Only if they push a lawyer out in front of them to act as a cushion
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
and 4000 miles in radius.
Finally Scientists will be able to conclude that human like objects CAN move at ridiculous speeds and survive* the impact.
*we will ignore the ability to suddenly stop at anytime during this test.
I swear that I saw a Discovery documentary where a guy did this same thing (From the record altitude), and broke at least MACH 1.
My wife doesn't listen to me either...
a starship troopers joke in this somewhere, but i am too lazy to think of it.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I read that the bow shock on the SR-71 goes into the engines at around mach 3. This provides the engines with pre-compressed air and fuel efficiency actually increases at that point. An old article written by one of the pilots had 2 highlights that I remember - 1) if you're on a mission at high speed and you're running out of fuel, GO FASTER it gets better mpg. 2) You light the afterburners for takeoff, and they generally don't ignite at the same time, so you immediately have to correct a large yaw moment on the ground as your accelerating at an astounding rate.
I did a tiny bit of mathemagic and got his time from 71500 feet (21793.2 meters) to earth at 66.67 seconds (just over a minute), and his maximum velocity at 2353.4 km/hr. SPLAT! Since his maximum speed was 364 miles per hour (162.72256 meters per second), he would have had to have accelerated from 0 meters per second (approximately) when he left the balloon/capsule, and accelerated to this 'terminal velocity' for 16.59587557 seconds and in that time fell 2700.523358 meters (to get to 364 miles per hour), and then remained at this speed for another 23.6763522 seconds (to get to 50,000 feet). They said it took him four minutes to get to 50,000 feet from 71500 feet. Was he still accelerating up when he left the capsule? Was his altitude 71500 feet when he left the capsule or was that the maximum altitude he got to after leaving the capsule (assuming he was still ascending when he left the capsule) and it took some seconds for his vertical ascent to stop before he started to fall? Somewhere things don't fit quite right.
The Doctor fell from outer space without a parachute, I think he bean Felix.
You are likely talking about a documentary regarding Joseph Kittinger, the guy who currently holds the high altitude jump record and set that record in 1960. The reason why it hasn't been tried again is in part due to the fact that such jumps have been perceived as being extremely dangerous. Project Excelsior, on the third jump by Col. Kittinger, finally did reach an ultimate velocity of 614 mph, or about nine-tenths of the speed of sound. Basically going the speed of many commercial jetliners if you want a comparison.
Part of the current effort for extreme altitude sky dives is in part to suggest an alternative re-entry method for astronauts that might be able to simply parachute to the Earth from LEO using a small thruster pack and perhaps a surfboard sized reentry shield. On top of that, it is one of the few major international aviation records that might be possible for somebody with private funding to break instead of a major military organization.
No, there hasn't been somebody who broke Mach 1 (aka the speed of sound) due to free fall. The extreme altitude being attempted by Baumgartner is going to get to that velocity though, in part because the air is so thin at that altitude that it won't offer much resistance until he gets much lower.
It's a myth that your blood will "boil" in a vacuum, at least while it is still within you.Your blood pressure is higher than the vapor pressure of the water in your blood. See http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970603.html So Dave can make it across the void and kill Hal. It was science fiction, not science fantasy. tOM
Epitaph: At last! Root access!
Preferably without a parachute.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Hipsters won't notice...
Required reading for internet skeptics
Consider that some of the parameters involve things like human strength and control (for spin avoidance, for instance) -- a weighted suit and a suit being controlled by a human with training don't necessarily behave the same.
The one-man re-entry suit GE built (but never finished testing) back in the day was real research. I don't see why this doesn't qualify similarly.
Moreover -- just dropping the suit without anyone in it could be what they'd do if they only wanted the data. Being a publicity stunt and being real research aren't necessarily mutually exclusive -- you've got two groups, they each have their own goals, and being able to make them both happy from the same funding pool is a win.
Part of the current effort for extreme altitude sky dives is in part to suggest an alternative re-entry method for astronauts that might be able to simply parachute to the Earth from LEO
Re-entry from orbit is a LOT harder - the lateral speed needed for LEO is ~7 km/s or about 21 times the speed of sound (at sea level). I suppose this is a start but from orbit you'll have ~400 times more KE to dissipate somehow which will not be trivial.
Survival is not required for being the first person to break the sound barrier without a means of propulsion.
He is not that first: astronauts do it all the time because a space craft does not use it engines once it is in orbit. If your argument is that they use propulsion initially to get to orbit then the same can be said of this attempt because it uses a mean of propulsion to get him up to ~40km high. Besides from a physics point of view, since the earth orbits the sun at ~29km/s, every human is already travelling at well over the speed of sound without propulsion and has been doing so since we first evolved - speed is all relative.
it seems to me that he might experience some problems with part of his body having supersonic shockwaves forming on it before other parts of his body, thanks to the non-aerodynamic shape of his head, shoulders, etc.
similar to airplanes breaking up at the sound barrier before they were designed to fly through it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_rule
Typical skydives are from 13K. If you go a little more than double like from 30K, you have to wear full O2 mask (not the cheapie like what falls from ceiling on airliners), and have to prebreath 100% O2 on ground before departure (highly recommended to prevent nitrogen bends). Then if you want to double that to 60K, you need a pressure suit. Though Armstrong line is 63K but probably not much difference to your body of 3000 feet.
So 30K which many been on airliner flights (and a few that have jumped from that height, http://mfwright.com/30Kjumps.html) is really not that high and "usable" atmosphere is really thin.
Jumping from 100K and above is a huge logistics challenge (if you want to do it right and live), i.e. Kittenger and resources of the USAF. Now there is Baumgartner's jump and amazing of all the stuff and people it takes to make it happen. At least now there are better pics and vids (getting Red Bull to release is another issue).
mfwright@batnet.com
Concept illustrated from 1959 book, Manâ(TM)s Reach Into Space However. It would lend a *whole* new meaning to the phrase "Smoke'n it down...." http://mfwright.com/spacebailout.html
mfwright@batnet.com
Only two things fall from the sky.
Bird shit and fools.
I wish mine were half as large as his!
Vietnam Veteran / Former Postal Worker -- Use Caution When Taunting!
A codpiece and balloons under the breasts mostly solved the problems there.
id like a little more confidence than "its not likely to happen" lol