Felix Baumgartner's Supersonic Skydive Attempt

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Felix Baumgartner's Supersonic Skydive Attempt

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday October 14, 2012 @04:22AM from the go-ahead-and-jump dept.

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.

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Redbull by bobstreo · 2012-10-14 04:25 · Score: 5, Funny

Has identified the limits of server capacity.
1. Re:Redbull by ThatsMyNick · 2012-10-14 04:30 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Before the server dies, here is the direct youtube link to the live feed - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrIxH6DToXQ
2. Re:Redbull by dtmos · 2012-10-14 05:02 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  the operator at the control center has a little bit of unfocused goofiness.
  
  You mean Joe Kittenger, the man who holds the existing record, the man Felix trusts implicitly, and possesses the only voice that Felix wants to hear in his capsule?
  When you are old enough to need bifocals, you'll appreciate the difference between "unfocused goofiness" and just trying to see.
3. Re:Redbull by malakai · 2012-10-14 06:29 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Something was still off between those two on communications. I think Joe was trying to put him at ease, probably had direct view of his heart rate and other things we couldn't see. But I think Felix was having a fight or flight moment. I actually worried something with his suit pressure was wrong because he was acting like he had nitrogen narcosis ( or the equivalent at opposite extremes of pressure). He was slow to respond, and sometimes didn't respond or acknowledge at all. I can't help to think if this was a NASA or military exercise, they would have stopped the egress checklist and switched to a "is our pilot ok" checklist. It was painful to watch.
  
  --
  -Malakai
  A Dragon Lives in my Garage
4. Re:Redbull by bytesex · 2012-10-14 07:08 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  He was also in a pressure suit the severely limited his motion. Maybe he was just too busy to talk, trying to figure out how to get certain things done.
  
  --
  Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
5. Re:Redbull by Sulphur · 2012-10-14 07:55 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  When he was asked to confrim that his pressure suite is inflating he just sat there and didn't respond (nothing to do apparently). Kittinger asked repeatedly and only then after some secondes (20, 30?) he got an answer.
  Briefly time became two dimensional.
6. Re:Redbull by trout007 · 2012-10-14 08:59 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  I'm certified as an Enriched Air diver and you are a bit confused. It's the partial pressure of Oxygen that will kill you. The safe limit we dive to is 1.6 atm partial pressure of O2. This means that you could breath pure O2 in about 20 ft of water. Below that it's toxic.
  In spacesuits they breath pure O2 at about 3-4 psi. The reason is if you put in other gases your mixed gas pressure will be too high and you can't move in a flexible suit. If you go too low you are in trouble too.
  
  --
  I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
7. Re:Redbull by ManicMechanic · 2012-10-14 17:01 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  the temp was likely correct. the temp decreases with altitude only until you reach the tropopause. after that you are in the stratosphere and temperature rises with altitude. this jump was well above the tropopause.
Yay. Slashdot is up to date and current finally! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-14 04:27 · Score: 5, Funny

FINALLY... A Slashdot posting that doesn't appear AFTER the event! :-)
Be patient by Grayhand · 2012-10-14 04:46 · Score: 4, Funny

They are holding up the video feed until they pry his hands off the safety rail.
Re:ha! by lilfields · 2012-10-14 04:51 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.
Hydrogen? by hawguy · 2012-10-14 04:54 · Score: 3, Interesting

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?
1. Re:Hydrogen? by hawguy · 2012-10-14 05:09 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Are you high or something? Or is scientific stuff only the stuff you approve of?
  Well, I'm more interested in the medical usage - about six months ago, my dad had to reschedule an MRI, the imaging center said that there was a shortage of helium needed to run the unit. He had a non-critical need for his MRI so rescheduling was not a problem, but I have to think that the 30 million cubic feet of helium that they are venting to the atmosphere in this thrill ride would keep a lot of MRI machines running.
  http://www.fiercemedicalimaging.com/story/helium-shortage-threatens-access-mri-services/2012-09-23
2. Re:Hydrogen? by vlm · 2012-10-14 05:16 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Why don't they use Hydrogen for things like this
  Aside from the obvious hair shirt trolling, you can talk to the ham radio guys who launch balloons with radio repeaters slung underneath them.
  You'd superficially think the very slightly lower weight of H2 would make H2 lift more than He, but after all manner of handwaving it turns out that very cold low pressure helium displaces more air at altitude. So 100 Liters of H2 and He at STP, hauled up 100Kft, supposedly that results in a slightly higher volume of He than H2. I honestly don't care enough to research it, but urban legend or no its an entertaining story. And you're not solving it with ideal gas laws (need non-ideal gas laws/tables)
  Because H2 comes from natgas and He comes from natgas the obvious next calculation is if the larger balloon outweighs (get it?) the advantage of cheaper filling.
  You could probably create a whole low level undergrad or maybe AP high school science lab out of determining if the first claim is true or made up and secondly which would overall as a system be cheaper aka less damaging to the environment.
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
3. Re:Hydrogen? by Iskender · 2012-10-14 06:17 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Except that medical grade helium and the crap they fill party balloons with are two different things.
  Helium is an element. It won't break down, and actually due to being helium it won't even form compounds. The only problem is that it leaks into space, never to return.
  If helium is mixed up with other elements you can purify it. Compared to purifying gold ore it's probably child's play.
  The line about balloon helium being somehow different from important helium is actually the standard line of the balloon manufacturers. But it makes no scientific sense, so don't listen to it.
4. Re:Hydrogen? by pnot · 2012-10-14 06:18 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Except that medical grade helium and the crap they fill party balloons with are two different things.
  No, they're the same thing subjected to different degrees of refinement. Everything from balloon helium to the highest-grade purified lab helium come from the same limited sources.
  The volume of the Red Bull Stratos balloon is close to a cubic kilometre. Factoring in the practice jumps and aborted launches, I'd estimate that this project could easily be accounting for over 3% of US helium consumption this year.
  I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask why hydrogen is not a viable alternative. There are probably some good, valid answers to that question, but I don't think that yours is one of them. And we do need a longer, louder discussion of how helium usage should be prioritized: it's neither renewable nor (in many applications) substitutable.
5. Re:Hydrogen? by Xylantiel · 2012-10-14 07:26 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  My impression from the previous discussion on this was that helium shortage is a fictional crisis. Medical usages don't do helium recovery, which is where most of the loss occurs. Also the main source of helium - as a by-product of natural gas extraction - just vents most of it because its not worth capturing it. So complaining about "misuse" is nonsense. If one is really worried about a helium shortage one should be pushing for recovery in its biggest usage context and stockpiling. Neither of these are being discussed, so apparently this isn't actually serious.
6. Re:Hydrogen? by musth · 2012-10-14 14:10 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  History and the modern world are fraught with examples of people wasting resources without adequate planning for the future. Deferring to market-think doesn't make that problem go away. Overconfidence in the market is what causes or exacerbates a high percentage of our problems.
  Even if it WERE true that the market would probably respond to a helium shortage by supplying additional quantities, that doesn't change the fact that one asshole, who wants glory badly enough and who has enough power and resources to make people assist him in his goal, can use much more of a resource than any person has a right to, given the current state of affairs and supply of that resource. As another commenter said, healthcare is RATIONING helium, right now.
Re:ha! by Splab · 2012-10-14 05:05 · Score: 3, Interesting

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.
Re:Yay. Slashdot is up to date and current finally by lennier1 · 2012-10-14 05:35 · Score: 4, Funny

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.
Re:Famous last word by jrmcc · 2012-10-14 06:04 · Score: 5, Funny

Nope - "Redbull gives you wiiiiiings!"
For an official record ... by MartinSchou · 2012-10-14 06:25 · Score: 4, Funny

For it to be an official record, doesn't he need to do it twice, once in each direction?
1. Re:For an official record ... by Hentes · 2012-10-14 06:45 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Jumping on the opposite side of Earth would make him fall in the other direction.
Re:Speed_of_sound 1,236 km/h by rochrist · 2012-10-14 06:39 · Score: 5, Informative

The speed of sound varies with air pressure. At 100,000 ft, the SoS is actually 680mph.
Re:Yay. Slashdot is up to date and current finally by magic+maverick+ · 2012-10-14 06:47 · Score: 4, Informative

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!
Re:Yay. Slashdot is up to date and current finally by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-14 06:48 · Score: 5, Informative

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.....
Re:How much Helium was used... by Megane · 2012-10-14 07:08 · Score: 3, Informative

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.

--
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Re:Yay. Slashdot is up to date and current finally by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-14 07:22 · Score: 5, Funny

Get back in your kangaroo and piss off. No one cares about your pedantry.
Re:Major FAIL on marketing by TrekkieGod · 2012-10-14 07:48 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.
Re:Yay. Slashdot is up to date and current finally by tqk · 2012-10-14 08:35 · Score: 4, Funny

... roughly at -34.45221847282653, 75.2783203125
That's roughly? Are you a Vulcan, or positronic?

--
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit ..." -- Pink Floyd.
Re:Yay. Slashdot is up to date and current finally by JustOK · 2012-10-14 09:15 · Score: 4, Funny

"roughly" modified HOW it would place him, not the where.
--Live long and avoid inefficiency.

--
rewriting history since 2109
Re:Speed_of_sound 1,236 km/h by Bomazi · 2012-10-14 10:22 · Score: 3, Informative

The speed of sound varies with temperature. The formula is 'c = 165.8 + 0.6 * T', with c in m/s and T in K. See this simulation of Baumgartner's jump.