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Baumgartner Completes 13.5-Mile Free-Fall Jump, Aims For Record

Posted by Soulskill on from the i-can-see-my-house-from-here dept.

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.'"

35 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. So, first he breaks the height record... by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 2

    ... and then he breaks the speed record?

    1. Re:So, first he breaks the height record... by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Funny

      The whole attempt will be a win, win situation for him - he's guaranteed to make it into the Guinness Book.

      After the attempt, he'll either he'll have the record for the highest freefall jump, or he'll have the record for the world's largest pizza.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    2. Re:So, first he breaks the height record... by EdIII · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No. If he survives till the ground it will be the longest free fall jump. Survival is not required for being the first person to break the sound barrier without a means of propulsion.

    3. Re:So, first he breaks the height record... by buchner.johannes · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

      Sorry to hear you got bored halfway, bro.

      --
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    4. Re:So, first he breaks the height record... by whoever57 · · Score: 2

      Survival is not required for being the first person to break the sound barrier without a means of propulsion.

      My inner physicist tells me that gravity is a means of propulsion.

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    5. Re:So, first he breaks the height record... by zAPPzAPP · · Score: 2

      Don't forget the research data!

      It will come in handy for our first planetary invasions using space marines.

    6. Re:So, first he breaks the height record... by honkycat · · Score: 5, Funny

      My inner relativist tells me that he's not moving at all, he's merely pulling the earth toward him.

  2. On the bright side by Nidi62 · · Score: 2

    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
  3. Slowing down. by Animats · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Slowing down. by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · · Score: 3, Informative

      Dynamic pressure is going to be really high.

      Spins will be a hazard. Skydivers learn to control spins but not at that speed.

    2. Re:Slowing down. by JWSmythe · · Score: 5, Informative

        Kittinger did several flights of this sort. Manhigh I and Excelsior I, II, III. There may have been others. I'm not that well versed on old USAF projects.

        As I recall from interviews I've read regarding the 1st flight, Kittinger was flying blind for a good bit of the ascent. His visor frosted over, so he couldn't see anything, including his altimeter. On the 3rd flight, his right glove leaked, causing his hand to swell. There was no permanent injury from that though.

          While not mentioned in the summary, it's in the story that Kittinger is consulting on Baumgartner's jumps. He's also been planning it for a while. Here's a 2010 story on it.

      http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/faster-than-the-speed-of-sound-the-man-who-falls-to-earth-1877875.html

          As far as I know, there were no failed attempts of this sort. Well, not that resulted in the person not surviving, despite the blurb at the end of the summary. Well, it fails twice in that Kettinger did break the speed of sound.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    3. Re:Slowing down. by ottawanker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You don't make a boom as you cross the sound barrier, you make it the entire time you are going faster than the speed of sound.

    4. Re:Slowing down. by DirtySouthAfrican · · Score: 2

      Except the shock cone of say, an SR-71 Blackbird, originate at the nose and inlet cones of the aircraft, and these are specifically designed to keep the shockwaves ahead of the engines, and thus keep the airflow in the engines subsonic. What you are saying is mostly correct, except that this wall of sound is what happens when "sound" starts to behave non-linearly. When you try to push air faster than a certain speed, molecules begin to pile up, density increases, heat increases, and it stops behaving like air in the way we are used to. You don't need a sound source for this. The energy you are pumping into that shockwave will be plenty loud. I think some artillery create shock waves that can be felt before the cannon can be heard.

    5. Re:Slowing down. by khallow · · Score: 2

      The sonic boom phenomenon is the compressed sound (normally of a jet engine) slamming into you all at once, literally a wall of sound, rather than hearing it as it comes nearer, passes, and moves away from you.

      There will be a sonic boom. The sonic boom is a shock wave created by the displacement of atmosphere caused by the passage of anything traveling faster than the speed of sound. It doesn't matter if the object generates sound in addition to that. For objects falling more or less straight down, the sonic boom propagates towards the horizon and through atmosphere that is far less dense than the lower atmosphere. It's probably possible to detect the sonic boom in question, but it's vastly less energy (and hence noise) than that of a jet traveling mostly horizontally and in lower, denser atmosphere.

    6. Re:Slowing down. by timeOday · · Score: 4, Informative
      Here is what NASA says:

      theory predicts -- and animal experiments confirm -- that otherwise, exposure to vacuum causes no immediate injury. You do not explode. Your blood does not boil. You do not freeze. You do not instantly lose consciousness. Various minor problems (sunburn, possibly "the bends", certainly some [mild, reversible, painless] swelling of skin and underlying tissue) start after ten seconds or so. At some point you lose consciousness from lack of oxygen. Injuries accumulate. After perhaps one or two minutes, you're dying. The limits are not really known.

      You do not explode and your blood does not boil because of the containing effect of your skin and circulatory system. You do not instantly freeze because, although the space environment is typically very cold, heat does not transfer away from a body quickly. Loss of consciousness occurs only after the body has depleted the supply of oxygen in the blood.

    7. Re:Slowing down. by Teancum · · Score: 3, Informative

      The dangerous part is if you start to spin, there isn't much you can do to stop it from happening.... drogue or not. This is because of the extreme altitude as there isn't much air to interact with at all.

      Kittinger's first Excelsior test at "merely" 76,000 feet nearly cost him his life when he went into a flat spin eventually rotating at 120 rpm before he finally got it under control after passing out due to the fact that his main chute automatically deployed and broke the spin. This problem also happens to high altitude aircraft, but they usually have some kind of rudimentary control surface to work with and some high altitude aircraft even have "thrusters" to help with aircraft orientation if it becomes a problem... at least being able to partially control the jet exhaust in some manner.

      When you get to a lower altitude, the drogue chute is much more useful and can be used.... but you need to get to that altitude where it can be useful in the first place. This is called extreme skydiving for a good reason.

    8. Re:Slowing down. by Teancum · · Score: 2

      Due to the substantially lower density of the human body, even a fall from orbit isn't necessarily all that dangerous. One of the issues facing spacecraft designers is that the vehicle is usually made of metal and has an overall density that is quite high (from not just the shell of the spacecraft, but also all of the instruments and supplies as well).

      It has been proposed that one possible rescue mode for astronauts in orbit is to perform one of these extreme altitude descents. There still are many things which aren't known about such extreme jumps, so efforts like Baumgartner's can genuinely be something that may end up saving people's lives in the future. In theory, the problems that faced the final crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia could have been survived had those skills and that option been available to those astronauts.

  4. Did this make anyone else think of MOOSE? by Port1080 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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 )

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    1. Re:Did this make anyone else think of MOOSE? by dfcamara · · Score: 2

      Not only higher but jumping from ISS you also start at orbital velocity (7.7-7.6 km/s)

    2. Re:Did this make anyone else think of MOOSE? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Its not debatable at all. Its a VERY well understood science.

      The ISS is in ORBIT. It is traveling at 17500 MPH. If you enter at that speed, you burn up. If you were not in orbit, and dropped straight down from the height of the ISS, you would not burn up.

      "Orbit" is not higher or lower than anything else up there, its simply a speed at which you fall as fast as you move around the earth. Its an endless fall.

      So, jumping from an actual orbit, you die. Jumping from a balloon or whatever, you do not.

  5. Re:Wow by durrr · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  6. Re:Previous art... by ThePeices · · Score: 2

    this jump was a test run.

  7. Re:All of this has been done before... by cduffy · · Score: 2

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Kittinger

    Read the article much? Kittinger is one of the people helping.

  8. Not really the first to go supersonic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    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

  9. Re:Wow by GreyWolf3000 · · Score: 4, Funny

    So basically hipsters can jump from 100,000+ feet safely?

    --
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  10. Joe Kittinger by p51d007 · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  11. How about this photo? by p51d007 · · Score: 2

    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

  12. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    As far as I'm concerned, yes.

  13. Re:Sure are a lot of silver-haired folk in the pho by timeOday · · Score: 2

    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).

  14. The Speed of Sound is not 700 mph by iliketrash · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  15. Re:Wow by peragrin · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.
  16. Almost by gr8_phk · · Score: 2

    Except the shock cone of say, an SR-71 Blackbird, originate at the nose and inlet cones of the aircraft, and these are specifically designed to keep the shockwaves ahead of the engines, and thus keep the airflow in the engines subsonic.

    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.

  17. Re:Wow by Teancum · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  18. Re:Wow by narcc · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hipsters won't notice...

    --
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  19. Orbit Lot Harder by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.