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The Tech Behind Felix Baumgartner's Stratospheric Skydive
MrSeb writes "Felix Baumgartner has successfully completed his stratospheric skydive from 128,000 feet (39km), breaking a record that was set 52 years ago by Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger — that much we know. From the balloon, to the capsule, to the gear that Baumgartner wore during his 730 mph (1174 kph) free fall, the technology behind the scenes is impressive, and in some cases bleeding edge. ExtremeTech takes a deep dive into the tech that kept Baumgartner alive during the three-hour ascent and (much shorter) descent — and the tech that allowed us to watch every moment of the Red Bull Stratos mission live, as captured by no less than 15 digital cameras and numerous other scientific instruments."
I initially thought this said "The tech fell behind". As in Youtube collapsing in the middle.
1. Figure out a cool project
2. Find a sponsor
3. Take one step to skydive from 128,000 ft
4. Profit
There is a fail-safe which could have deployed the main shoot if he had been moving at more than 115 feet (35 meters) per second at 2,000 feet (610 meters) or less altitude.
You know, the parashoot. Idiots.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
To be fair, they point to different articles which happen to be on the same subject. The first was all about the jump and links so we could watch it, the second is all about the tech behind the jump. Personally I liked both posts. But if I hadn't liked the second post it would only have taken up a few seconds of my day to figure it out.
He was not the first to parachute faster than the speed of sound. He was the first to do so voluntarily. Of the first two people to do this, one of them died in the air. Not an easy feat.
The most essential pieces of equipment were a bottle of Jack Daniels and a blindfold.
"Hello Ground!" or "oh no, not again"
I bet it was one of them though.
You
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underestimated
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of my
complaint
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
We're getting a report about a balloon-launched capsule coming down on some guy's front lawn.
Have gnu, will travel.
Hydrogen would have gotten him a lot higher as the molecular weight is only 1/2 of Helium. Also, it would not have wasted a precious finite resource for little gain.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Just to show I do occasionally RTFA... "...the speed of sound — approximately 690 meters per second..." Not unless the air up there is 911 deg C it aint.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "we have a protractor"
Let's not forget all the Aussie stories plastered over Slashdot whenever certain "editors" are in charge..
Aussie refers to Australian. Felix is Austrian
Indeed, during the press conference the following figures were stated at least twice:
Exit altitude: 128100 ft (39045m) [record]
Free fall time: 4m 20s
Free fall distance: 119826 ft (36529m)
Max velocity: 373 m/s (1342.8 km/h, 833.9 mph, Mach 1.24) [record]
A third record would be the maximum distance of ascent with a human-occupied balloon, which may exceed the 39045m of exit altitude, as the balloon appeared to descend somewhat before Baumgartner exited. Actually, if the telemetry information displayed on the feed can be trusted then he reached at least 39068m (128177 ft) at the time that he was first sticking his feet out into the open.
No matter the numbers, this is an impressive achievement!
--Udo.
What about gravity?
Gravity doesn't really exist. It's actually Intelligent Pushing, where an external all-powerful creator stretches his invisible arm out to make sure that nobody floats off the Earth, or falls off its edge.
John
Where was the helmet cam? I watched the event live from their site and thought that we'd see his perspective as he fell. Is there no tech available to do that? I find that surprising with seven years in the making. Did I miss something? Now that I'm thinking of it, it would have been much better if he jumped with a couple sharks sporting lasers --wearing live helmet cams, too.
No sig for you! Come back one year!
When Joe Kittinger jumped for Excelsior in the '50s and '60s, he was testing the feasibilty high-altitude escape systems. He succeeded, and in the process, set some very impressive and rather durable records. Stratos was a not-very-subtle ad-funded stunt show. There's real science being done but I have little doubt that it's ultimately in service to the sponsor (also Austrian).
Whether or not Red Bull spent two years and who knows how much, why isn't this still one of the coolest things to happen in some time? Watching him stand there with the curvature of Earth below him is one of those things that makes me jealous. And there are some things being tested - newer versions of the high-alt suits and maybe more.
However, I'm a little annoyed about people thinking that now astronauts and such can use suits like Felix's to escape bad situations in space. Felix jumped more or less straight down with almost no lateral velocity. Someone BASE-jumping from ISS may pull some staggering free-fall numbers (greater height for 9.8 (m/s)^2) but those won't likely compare to the 11,000 mph they're already moving parallel with the surface just to maintain orbit. Toasty!
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
Baumgartner achieved speed of sound 'autonomously' without first sitting in a high-speed jet but by freefalling. All other examples are of pilots ejecting from a high-speed airplane, going over Mach using an engine. So while what you say is correct, I would rather emphasize the "freefall" versus "engine-powered" part :)
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You can't "base jump" out of the ISS unless you have a portable jetpack capable of decelerating you to deorbit. You need a delta-V of around 225 ft/s. If you step outside the ISS, all that will happen is that you will continue orbit the Earth with the ISS. You would starve to death before deorbiting solely due to atmospheric friction.
Wow.. you can generalize just about anything.
Jump:
Guy steps in balloon, 3 hours later steps out of ballon (sic), some minutes later he deploys his chute
land speed record:
guy gets in vehicle, accelerates, deploys chute to decelerate.
Moon landing:
guys get into capsule, fire spews from the bottom of rocket, guys step out of capsule after it lands
Seriously, don't generalize, it makes you look stupid.
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