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Skydiver Leaps From 18 Miles Up In 'Space Jump' Practice
wooferhound writes "A daredevil leapt from a balloon more than 18 miles above the Earth today, moving one step closer to a so-called 'space jump' that would set the record for the world's highest skydive. Austrian adventurer Felix Baumgartner stepped out of his custom-built capsule at an altitude of 96,640 feet (29,456 meters) above southeastern New Mexico, officials with Red Bull Stratos — the name of Baumgartner's mission — announced today. In today's jump, Baumgartner experienced freefall for three minutes and 48 seconds, reaching a top speed of 536 mph (863 kph), project officials said. Baumgartner then opened his parachute and glided to Earth safely about 10 minutes and 30 seconds after stepping into the void."
That's one small step for a man, One giant leap for me.
Makes me wish I'd been alive to watch live coverage of people LANDING ON THE FREAKING MOON.
while [ 1 ]; do echo -n -e "\xe2\x95\xb$((($RANDOM&1)+1))"; done
From the article:
Red Bull Stratos is a mission to the edge of space to an altitude of 37.000 meters to break several records including the sound of speed in freefall
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
While these things are somewhat debatable, Baumgartner's future "space jump" is not due to take place in what most consider "space."
FTFA:
Baumgartner has his eyes on an even bigger leap, a "space jump" from 125,000 feet (38,100 m) in the next month or so. (Space, however, is generally considered to begin at an altitude of 62 miles, or 327,000 feet.)
It's still a great feat and laudable they went ahead with it despite ridiculous legal challenges:
Baumgartner and his team had hoped to attempt his record jump in 2010, but they were delayed by a legal challenge that claimed the idea of the dive was earlier suggested to Red Bull by California promoter Daniel Hogan.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
Did he also attain distinction of being fastest non-propelled human?
Air resistance up to typical skydiving altitude provides sufficient drag to keep the person from accelerating to the point where deceleration would result in so much friction as to vaporize the person. If this guy's really dead-set on jumping from the actual threshold of space...
1. He'll need thermal insulation until he's in the earth atmosphere properly. I hear it's pretty cold up there.
2. I think it's safe to assume he has the oxygen problem licked, because at 12 miles, he'd have suffocated.
3. I understand objects falling from that altitude tend to encounter very little air resistance, which means they pick up a lot of speed. The kind of speed that causes brilliant fireballs to appear in place of anything falling from that height, like asteroids, satellites, and space shuttles.
... I don't see how anyone could survive those kinds of physical stresses while maintaining any level of mobility, or having a silhouette even vaguely resembling a person. The low mass of a person (even one encased in inches-thick ceramic heat shielding, would mean the bow wave shocks would turn anyone inside into goo. Perhaps someone with a better understanding of physics clear up for me why this isn't the case, since I'm pretty sure Red Bull doesn't want their energy drink to be associated with what in my eyes is essentially suicide by thermodynamics?
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
The secret of flying is to throw oneself at the ground - and miss.
Upon landing Mr. Baumgartner simply requested a cigar and fresh undies.
If you could run this as a business operation, I wonder how much you could charge people for "space jumps"?
Committees from both the Darwin Awards and Guinness will be on hand for the final jump. The Guinness people are hoping for multiple awards at the jump. Highest jump, longest free fall, highest velocity in free fall, longest scream in free fall, highest speed a human ever impacted the ground and greatest distance human remains were spread after impact.
Did he also attain distinction of being fastest non-propelled human?
No, I'm pretty sure that record was set by the Apollo 10 re-entry, at close to 40,000 km/h (almost 25,000 mph).
He's not even the fastest skydiver - that record has held for 52 years now - Joseph Kittinger did a free fall in 1960 that lasted 21% longer and reached a top speed 15% faster than what Baumgartner just did.
Freefall strictly speaking means 9.8m/s/s which, after 228 seconds, multiplies out to 5000mph. That's an order of magnitude more than Baumgartner's speed. Wikipedia explains:
"The example of a falling skydiver who has not yet deployed a parachute is not considered free fall from a physics perspective, since they experience a drag force which equals their weight once they have achieved terminal velocity (see below). However, the term "free fall skydiving" is commonly used to describe this case in everyday speech, and in the skydiving community."
Still, terminal velocity for a human at sea level is about 120mph which is 4.5 times slower than the quoted 536mph. Taking the square root gives an atmospheric pressure 2.1 times less than normal which translates to him popping the 'chute at about 25,000. Actually he had a pressure suit which would probably slow him down so it could have been higher than that.
On Aug. 16, 1960, US military Col. Kittinger stepped from a balloon-supported gondola at the altitude of 102,800 feet to test the use of a parachute for escape from a space capsule or high-altitude aircraft. In free-fall for 4.5 minutes at speeds up to 614 mph and temperatures as low as -94 degrees Fahrenheit, Col. Kittinger opened his parachute at 18,000 feet.
The jump set records that still stand today: the highest ascent in a balloon, the highest parachute jump, the longest free-fall, and the fastest speed by a man through the atmosphere.
Video of the story
It's been postulated more than once that a helmet and tight spandex-like suit (well, more like neoprene than spandex, but those discussing it usually say spandex because of the recognizability of it) could be all that's needed to survive hard vacuum, but little money has been spent on verification. The full NASA suits are insulators, along with so many other functions. It would be interesting to see what would happen with $1,000,000,000 being spent on finding the minimum safe space suit for brief exposure to hard vacuum (brief being 1 hour, no more than once a month).
The billion dollars would be money well spent if it reduced space suits to a $1000 specialized track suit that could be sold as a (semi) functional space suit to the geeks and nerds, simplifying travel in the future.
Learn to love Alaska
Aliens, nothing! Here, read this before They brainwash you with more disinformation!
The "Moon": A Ridiculous Liberal Myth
It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
The Apollo 10 astronauts were in a capsule, not skydiving, but that hadn't happened when Kittinger set the record in 1960. Even Yuri Gagarin's flight wasn't until 1961, and the U-2 planes only went up to about 70,000 feet.
Bill Stewart
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Breedlove set world land speed records of 500 and 600 mph, and one of his cars got up to about 675 before crashing.
Its still short of the current land speed record which is 763.035 mph, and slower than the current free fall speed record of 614 mph, which was set in 1960 by Joseph Kittinger.
Kittinger is a consultant on this project, so I guess he's ok with losing his record :)
Astronauts returning home from ISS could just jump, all that's needed is a parachute.
Yes.
However, the reentry heat one normally thinks of comes from one of two additional vectors (sometimes both!) that make the effect larger than it would be from a simple drop from a balloon.
First, most objects fall from orbit. Depending on how high of an orbit they were in, they were deliberately put at a high lateral orbit speed somewhere below escape velocity.Which as it turns out is pretty damn fast when compared to the atmosphere, so objects returning from orbit "skid in" at high speed compared to the surface.
Some objects from from faster than escape velocity (space rocks, stuff coming back from orbiting the sun or to the moon) and have an additional "get there" velocity.
While a super-atmosphere sky diver might have to contend with speed related friction heat, it's not a large given like it is with other scenarios. With proper propulsion breaking it is possible to step out of a "stopped" capsule after coming in from a moon mission (for example) and drop to the earth in just a specialized suit.
It's not PRACTICAL to do so if you are running a space mission, but it's possible. Kittinger's missions were for investigating other things than reentry from orbit of humans though.
As the atmosphere increased, it would work as a natural break and slow the descent. Eventually you'd be going slow enough (120mph or so) to fall within a parachute's normal operating parameters.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."