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Felix Baumgartner's Supersonic Skydive Attempt
First time accepted submitter madcarrots writes "The Red Bull Stratos space jump is about to take place. The balloon is filling up and launch is expected around 10 AM MDT. Check out the live feed of the inflation process... it's beautiful!" After some delays it looks like the jump is finally going to happen. UPDATE: The jump was a success. Baumgartner is on the ground and apparently fine.
Has identified the limits of server capacity.
FINALLY... A Slashdot posting that doesn't appear AFTER the event! :-)
They are holding up the video feed until they pry his hands off the safety rail.
Yes getting people interested in science with stunts is a complete waste of time. NASA has totally failed to capture the imaginative of kids these days, even though decades ago they were doing things very similar to this. Sure this isn't exactly going to the moon, but there is a lot of science behind this, and if it helps people become more interested, then it is far from a waste of time or money.
Why don't they use Hydrogen for things like this (one-time use balloon) and preserve more Helium for scientific and medical use (and for safe party balloons)?
Or is helium depletion no longer a pressing problem with the current natural gas boom?
Hydrogen has been largely discredited as the root cause of the Hindenberg disaster, is it possible to use it safely in a high altitude research balloon?
Here is the direct URL to Youtube, in case the Red Bull Stratos site isn't working for people:
http://www.youtube.com/user/redbull?v=MrIxH6DToXQ
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
I connected to a US VPN and as if by magic I can see the video (but it keeps buffering)... hmm are they limiting access or something?
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
For me Red Bull sure is doing a lot for pushing science - granted, it's mostly "How can I make this go faster with less safety" - but the result of their various experiments are helping the greater good, just think about all the advancements in the field of patching people up after "Hey, Y'all watch this" moments.
if it helps people become more interested
An interesting, almost too serious /. poll would be what inspired you as a /.er-type person whatever you call yourself.
For me it was hard sci fi and the feeling I could get involved in amateur science type stuff much more so than watching others perform vaguely technical stunts. Stunts are for the grade school kids who didn't care, watched a stunt on TV for 5 minutes with modest curiosity, still don't care.
Clarke and Asimov and ham radio and owning a cheap microscope and cheap telescope and a computer had a hell of a lot more to do with it than those taco bell guys who offered a free taco if their floating target was hit by pieces of the re-entering Mir space station.
On the other side I think the guy is pretty impressive to have hacked the overall corporate system to get to do something that to him is pretty cool. If he gets turned into a bug on the windshield, perhaps I could convince red bull to sponsor me doing my hobby... I'm sure no one else cares, and that wouldn't even be the point, merely that I would enjoy having someone else pay for my "hobby" probably at the cost of bolting on some corporate logo...
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The capsule is made from polycarbonates, not from metal. Thus it is just bright, not shiny.
On the other hand, there are commercials. The future is a whore.
If it goes wrong it'll still set a record for the most expensive attempt to dig a hole to China without the use of a shovel.
That was a bit akward. Not sure if it was a communication issue or nerves, but he was not responding to the request to begin the egress checklist and said something I couldn't hear that definitely didn't sound like confidence. Looks like he eventually pulled it together, and you could hear the relief in the communication managers voice.
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
Nope - "Redbull gives you wiiiiiings!"
He's on the ground. It was a successful jump, and the first person has come up to him. It looks like he has the world record, I think it was more than 39 000 meters!
Well done. But hell, bloody scary I'm sure. I'd love to do the parachute stage, but not the free fall.
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
FYI, youtube is up to 6.58 million "watching now".
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Yeah, what a jerk. He only broke the record for the highest manned balloon flight, highest freefall and fastest freefall. How dare he only break 3 out of 4 records and narrowly miss mach!? Not to mention all the data he collected. But you're right, his guy just seriously needs to go away.
Never start vast projects with half-vast ideas.
For it to be an official record, doesn't he need to do it twice, once in each direction?
Forgot to add:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_sound
The speed of sound is the distance travelled during a unit of time by a sound wave propagating through an elastic medium. In dry air at 20 C (68 F), the speed of sound is 343.2 metres per second (1,126 ft/s). This is 1,236 kilometres per hour (768 mph), or about one kilometer in three seconds or approximately one mile in five seconds.
Looks like for a while in free fall he was actually in a spin and admitted to passing out. You could see the flickering/tumbling of his image on the video feed from the ground. Managed to pull it out though.
You are a moron. Felix Baumgartner is an Austrian (you know, from Austria, in Europe). The company sponsoring the event, Red Bull, is also Austrian. So ah, I guess, fuck you.
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
Things like this are good to show your kids to demonstrate what a Real American can do with guts and determination and also to show them the indomitability of the American spirit and how we don't need to take any God damn shit from the Chinks, Japs, Eurotrash etc.
If he had have died it would have additionally shown your kids that jumping off high things is very dangerous.
So really it's win/win.
Except he is Austrian.....
It is designed to cut from the balloon and land with its own parachute. Not only is there equipment in there that they need for every jump, it's his emergency return option. It wouldn't be the most comfortable landing, but it would be survivable.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Get back in your kangaroo and piss off. No one cares about your pedantry.
I managed to drag my kids away from Minecraft from the moment the hatch opened to about a minute after he jumped, so although I don't know how many millions that cost, it was a price worth paying. Well done science!
When he landed they should have given him a "Red Bull" rather than a bottle of water.
Concern for his well being should supersede marketing concerns. So I call that a major WIN.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
AFAIK the only kangaroos in Austria are in the zoo.
... roughly at -34.45221847282653, 75.2783203125
That's roughly? Are you a Vulcan, or positronic?
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
When he landed they should have given him a "Red Bull" rather than a bottle of water.
I think he was probably so hopped up on adrenaline after landing that if they gave him a Red Bull he would have detonated like a water balloon filled with ketchup.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Exit Height: 128,100 Feet
Free Fall Time: 4 Minutes 20 Seconds
Free Fall Distance: 119,846 Feet
Free Fall Speed: 833.9 Miles Per Hour or Mach 1.24
Yesterday's Weirdness is Tomorrow's Reason Why
"roughly" modified HOW it would place him, not the where.
--Live long and avoid inefficiency.
rewriting history since 2109
My only problem with this whole thing is that it seems to be getting more attention, coverage, and certainly live-internet views than landing an SUV on fucking Mars did. And people are covering it like it's "the next SpaceX accomplishment" or something. It's impressive. It's cool. However, it's just a dude in a pressurized suit flopping out of a platform strung to a balloon. This may push the limits of a man, but I don't know what it exactly pushes technologically or explorationally[*].
[*] I don't think that's a word, but whatever.
So ah, I guess, fuck you.
No, properly it's "Hasta la vista, baby."
To speak in in the vernacular of the only Austrian whom Americans can think of.
We can also think of the Julie Andrews (by way of the Sound of Music) and Mozart. After that the next name on the list would be Crocodile Dundee, and then the discussion turns to an Internet meme started by a president who asked, "is our childrens learning?"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"Austrian Felix Baumgartner has become the first skydiver to go faster than the speed of sound, reaching a maximum velocity of 833.9mph (1,342km/h)."
It sure was something seeing the guy in space one minute, then less than 10 minutes later, seeing him gracefully land on his feet.
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
The step was to close the visor and increase the visor heat to full (and a third step that was not intelligible in the audio), which the controller said had already been done.
In any case, you don't tell someone to skip steps in a procedure, period. It is also not a good idea to do more than one thing in one step, yet many of the steps in their checklist had numerous tasks - I counted FOUR tasks in one of the checklist steps.
How much Helium was used?
One balloon full!
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Capsule was returned to earth via parachute, to be recovered. Balloon will land eventually, somewhere, or was dragged down by the capsule after being vented. The helium was not really much of a waste, because the Helium used for lifting operations like this is the waste helium that comes out of the process of making liquid helium for medical and scientific purposes. Turns out, you can only purify helium so far, and so you get a tank of nice clean liquid helium, and also tank with a mix of helium and various other gasses that is not useful for much besides party balloons and Felix Baumgartner's death wishes.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.