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Space Diving: Iron Man Meets Star Trek Suit In Development
cylonlover writes "Science fiction may well become reality with the development of a real life Iron Man suit that would allow astronauts or extreme thrill seekers to space dive from up to 62 miles (100 km) above the Earth's surface at the very edge of space, and safely land using thruster boots instead of a parachute. Hi-tech inventors over at Solar System Express (Sol-X) and biotech designers Juxtopia LLC (JLLC) are collaborating on this project with a goal of releasing a production model of such a suit by 2016. The project will use a commercial space suit to which will be added augmented reality (AR) goggles, jet packs, power gloves and movement gyros."
Re just in case nobody want to read this they actually did a bit of research
From the article..
So where have we seen this before? If you are a Trekker, you will remember the scenes from 2009's Star Trek (The Future Begins) where James T. Kirk, Hikaru Sulu and Chief Engineer Olson performed a space dive to the Narada's drill platform. They jumped from a shuttle craft above planet Vulcan wearing high tech suits and used parachutes to land on the rig. “Super” Trekkers will also know about the space dive scene cut from the 1998 Star Trek Generations movie and the holodeck simulated "orbital skydiving" in Star Trek Voyager (Episode 5x03), also in 1998.
So more than just a headline reference to suck in the readers.
Drunkeness is an electron free version of virtual reality.
Vaporware is exactly what this is. The red bull team spent years designing and prepping for their suit, and it was a one off. These guys are going to have a suit production ready by 2016? Hogwash.
You're hurtling to your demise at past the speed of sound in atmospheric conditions that would literally make your blood boil. How much more extra sense of realism and stimulation do you need at that point?
If you can have a parachute, why not include a parachute? I'd consider retroboosters as the backup system, not the primary, for safety. By the time you're close enough to the ground to fire them, the parachute is no longer an option, so if they fail, you get about 3 seconds to contemplate your own stupidity before cratering.
A company that can provide two layers of life-saving security and yet only manufactures one should be charged with manslaughter, but instead we're allowing it because it caters to thrillseekers? Where was this kind of logic during the anti-smoking campaigns of yesteryear? "Smoking is okay; it's a thrill-seeking behavior!" Yeah.... okay, sure.
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Jet boots need fuel..
Lots and lots of fuel if you're going to make a safe landing at that speed. By the time you add in all the extra space needed for all of that fuel, gyros to keep you properly oriented and enough shielding to protect you on the way down, you have a landing boat, not a suit.
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Actually, you need surprisingly little fuel.
Even for a modest exhaust velocity of 2000m/s of the rocket and a terminal velocity of 100m/s (the atmosphere does most of the breaking for you anyway), only about 5% of the total mass need to be fuel to land. That's about 20kg of fuel for a total mass of 300kg of the whole rig including the shaved ape. There's also a healthy safety margin for hovering and fooling around before touchdown, especially if you use somewhat better rocket fuel. (2000m/s isn't all that great).
Nanofibre? Sure, but I want to use them to create a hybrid organic / inorganic mental lattice. My current brain can then interact with the additional brain power and more and more power can be added. Hopefully by the time my organic cells are old and dying it will be a mere fraction of the total mind and be redundantly duplicated across the neural network from recalling the memories. Bodies? Where I'm going, I don't need bodies. Why jump to the ground from space when I can just control a remote avatar wirelessly from the rim of the planet's gravity well?
Some people watched star trek and wanted to be the captain or engineer... I wanted to be the ship.
How'd you solve the icing problem?
You didn't get the memo? The cake was a lie.
Re just in case nobody want to read this they actually did a bit of research
From the article.. So where have we seen this before? If you are a Trekker, you will remember the scenes from 2009's Star Trek (The Future Begins) where James T. Kirk, Hikaru Sulu and Chief Engineer Olson...
...also known as the Expendable One in the red suit...(I started laughing like crazy when I saw this the first time, for I knew if they kept to tradition, he was as good as dead.)
...did it before anyone knew how to do it and walk away after.
Just ask Pyotr Ivanovich Dolgov.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
In the early 1960's, General Electric was working on an emergency "bail-out" system for astronauts in low-earth orbit. http://www.astronautix.com/craft/moose.htm
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOOSE
Land using rocket boots. Nope. 90% death rate for that one. the Human body does NOT have the strength to handle controlling and vectoring thrust with the legs. Anyone trying this will simply die. And it's a very stupid idea. A parachute works great, I'd rather have that than a giant tank of rocket fuel on my back.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"safely land using thruster boots instead of a parachute" Completely incorrect. According to the article and video, the suit will use not one, but TWO parachutes. As for the boots, they are not really "Iron Man" type thrusters, but simply for ensuring a smoother parachute-assisted landing (and probably mainly to look cool): From the article: "The other main function of the diver’s gyroscopic boots will kick in as he nears the surface of the Earth and he fires off his miniature in-built aerospike thrusters to gently descend to the ground for a feet-first perfect landing. " This is AFTER both parachutes have deployed. It seems like window dressing to me.