This guys balls are bigger and thougher than yours

[Trouble Maker]

http://gizmodo.com/5454895/man-to-break-sound-barrier-jumping-from-edge-of-space

 

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/4/2010/01/500x_redbullspacemission2.jpg

 

This man—looking as badass as Ed Harris in The Right Stuff—is Felix Baumgartner. He actually has The Right Stuff: The cojones to reach the edge of space in a weather balloon. Up to 120,000 feet—and then jump.

 

Baumgartner will join United States Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger as the only man to jump from near space altitude. Kittinger jumped on August 16, 1960, from the Excelsior III balloon, which at the time was flying at 102,800 feet—that's 19.47 miles or 31 kilometers up in the sky. Compared to Baumgartner, however, Kittinger's suit looks miserable:

 

In fact, his right glove failed in the descent, and his hand dilated to twice its size. Absolutely crazy.

 

Hopefully, Baumgartner won't have any of Kittinger's problems. He will jump sometime in 2010, after a few test jumps at lower altitudes, as part of Red Bull's Stratus mission. Kittinger will be assisting Baumgartner from the ground control, while the mission team monitors his position and body state as he plummets down to Earth, surpassing the speed of sound.

[Guest tbutera2112]

holy shit lol...im afraid of ladders, fuck doing that

[Kevin R.]

Good lord. Crazy SOB right there.

[RedRocket1647545505]

There's a vid of the first guy's jump somewhere on Youtube. IIRC, he freefell for over 5 minutes.

 

Let me find it...

[RedRocket1647545505]

[Trouble Maker]

There's a vid of the first guy's jump somewhere on Youtube. IIRC, he freefell for over 5 minutes.

 

Let me find it...

 

Yeah, that guy is one BAMF too. I had read about and seen some video his dives in the past when looking into sky diving. The article I posted touches on it, but he had a hole in his suit, in subspace. The vacuum was trying to suck his hand out of his suit, that's why his hand swelled up on the way down. That situation (hole in the suit) was supposed to be an automatic mission abort, he knew it was happening and didn't tell control so he could complete the jump.

 

IIRC people aruge whether he was in free fall becuase he was using a drag chute for stabilization. He needed that due to being in subspace, therefore less air, meaning decreased drag leading to not being able to control from simple body control.

[RedRocket1647545505]

Yeah, that guy is one BAMF too. I had read about and seen some video his dives in the past when looking into sky diving. The article I posted touches on it, but he had a hole in his suit, in subspace. The vacuum was trying to suck his hand out of his suit, that's why his hand swelled up on the way down. That situation (hole in the suit) was supposed to be an automatic mission abort, he knew it was happening and didn't tell control so he could complete the jump.

 

IIRC people aruge whether he was in free fall becuase he was using a drag chute for stabilization. He needed that due to being in subspace, therefore less air, meaning decreased drag leading to not being able to control from simple body control.

 

 

Drag chute or not, I think he still broke the sound barrier.

[Trouble Maker]

This is a more explanatory video, imho.

 

[Trouble Maker]

Drag chute or not, I think he still broke the sound barrier.

 

Thinking more about it, I think it was some argument about the technicality of it being the fastest or longest free fall. You can see he seems to have no control at the beginning of the fall.

 

That's the interesting thing, I think. I was thinking about before I watched the video I posted and It touches on it, he didn't break the sound barrier. He went faster than the speed of sound on earth, but in space, so therefore technically didn't break the sound barrier. There's little to no air, so he can't break the sound barrier. Look at what it takes to break the sound barrier in a vehicle in our autmosphere. IIRC the first planes that came near it were ripped apart. He would need much more than a pressure suit to not be ripped apart while approaching the speed of sound (on earth). There are massive forces that happen to an object as it approaches the sound barrier.

 

He still went faster than 768mph, not in a vehicle. That's just astounding.

[Veritas]

Holy shit jesse How the hell do you even come up with ideas like this??

[Trouble Maker]

Holy shit jesse How the hell do you even come up with ideas like this??

 

If by you, you mean the general you, as in why they thought of it the first time, the simple answer is space. IIRC their primary goal was to see the effects of space on the human body (if you watch the video I posted it was in 1964, i.e. during the space race and 5 years before we put a man on the moon). They probably had some other experiments on the balloon also.

 

EDIT: Found this article, I recalled the date from Kittingers jump incorrectly (it was 1960).

 

http://www.redbull.com/cs/Satellite/en_INT/Article/What-is-Red-Bull-Stratos--021242810683717?p=1242745950183

 

Team scientists and physicians will analyze mission data and release their findings for the benefit of the research community, establishing critical health and safety protocols for existing and future aerospace programs worldwide by developing learning into psychological and physiological human survival in space.

 

Joe Kittinger, who opened the door for space exploration when he made a parachute jump from 102,800 feet above sea level as part of the Excelsior programme on August 16, 1960, is part of the Red Bull Stratos mission team.

 

Kittinger's remarkable effort, which Baumgartner will be out to beat, proved that full-pressure suits could protect humans in the harsh environment of the stratosphere and influenced the 1969 mission to the moon.

[Spidey2721]

well iirc it (the idea) was thought of back with the sr 71 and spy plans reaching that high of a altitude. they need to know what would happen if they had to eject. i could be wrong but i think i remember correctly from history channel.

[1veryfastvr4]

maybe this is some dumb questions but how the hell that guy know where he will land from that far up? free falling like that until you pull the chute could put ot 100's of miles away from intended destination right? not until he does pull chute can he control where to land but that might be to late?

 

never done any sky diving just curious tho.... be crazy to land in another country lol

[Spidey2721]

imho. i believe they can figure a area that he will land in. nasa can tell you where something entering from space will land. he has a drag chute but that should be able to be taking into consideration. agreed that once he open full chute that it will vary. although not in a seriously large distance.

[RC K9]

Mad props. This is nuts.

[1veryfastvr4]

thats crazy, wonder how close they were to landing point from that high a jump

[RedRocket1647545505]

I want to know how long it takes for him to get up there in a balloon.

[Trouble Maker]

I want to know how long it takes for him to get up there in a balloon.

 

The video I posted said it took Kittinger an hour and a half.

[RedRocket1647545505]

The video I posted said it took Kittinger an hour and a half.

 

Hmm. Figured it'd have taken longer.

[Trouble Maker]

I was mistaken, Kittenger did not hit the speed of sound. He only hit 614mph, so this new jumper will be the first to hit the speed of sound.

[Xyster101]

That is amazing. I watched a documentary on the History Channel about the Joe Kittinger jump. He talked about how his glove got a hole in it and his hand swelled up and was frozen. In the end it worked out, but talk about nuts. Back then doing the tests they did on the rocket sleds and the X-1 plane, just nuts doing what they did! Him, Chuck Yeager, and others risking their lives for the advancement of technology.

[Alex L.]

What about terminal velocity?

[Trouble Maker]

What about terminal velocity?

 

An object hits terminal velocity on earth due to the force of drag from the air being the same as force of gravity accelerating the object, but obviously in opposite directions. Think of it like the top speed of your car. Lets ignore gearing and non-uniform power curve for a second (which withing a window of speed you basically can). As you get closer and closer to the top speed, the car accelerates slower and slower due to the drag being greater and greater. The same thing is happening when an object is in free fall and hits terminal velocity. At 0 speed there is no drag from air and the object accelerates quickly. Neglecting differences in gravity due to distance from the center of the earth, gravity accelerates uniformly, reardless of weight or size (if you ignore wind resistance). A feather will fall as fast as a book in a vacuum (I hope you've had a basics physics class and this example was shown). As the object goes faster the drag exponentially increases until gravity can no longer overcome that drag from the air. That's the objects terminal velocity.

 

In space there is zero air. They are in subspace so there is very little air, but there is still a good amount of gravity to rip them back to earth. So there is no such thing as terminal velocity, or if there is, it's much faster than here where the air is much thicker.

 

Do you remember in Alien at the beginning of the movie when they are out exploring the planet and it is dead silent? That planet had no atmosphere, therefore no air (or some other gas) to propagate the sound.

 

That was also why I said this new jumper will go faster than the speed of sound, but not break the sound barrier. Again for sound to propagate, and a sound barrier to be there to break, some medium (gas, air) needs to be there. So since there is almost no air where this new guy will be going that fast, they will not break the sound barrier. I'm just assuming he will slow himself via a chute before he get's into the atmosphere because I don't think we could make a suit right now that could withstand full speed re-entry heat/forces.

 

I've not read this to verify the correctness, but I'll assume it's at least ok. More reading if you want. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_velocity

[Alex L.]

You raise valid points, kudos.

 

The other problem that I can think of is when he encounters air again, how adverse of an effect would the friction have on him?

[Trouble Maker]

The other problem that I can think of is when he encounters air again, how adverse of an effect would the friction have on him?

 

Well for one it's not going to be a situation where all of the sudden there is air where there wasn't air. He will, relatively speaking, gradually see more and more air and be slowed down. Also like I said in my last post, I imagine before he get's too far into the atmosphere he will deploy his chute. EDIT: It appears some of my assumptions are wrong, since Kittinger deployed his chute around 18kft. I think it's mostly the first part of my thinking, that he will gradually see more and more air slowing him down 'gradually'.

 

You can see from this that he's not really that high up in the grand scheme of things and won't really experience a reentry on the scale of an object coming from outer space. For reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_reentry

 

The highest speed controlled entry so far achieved was by the Galileo Probe. The Galileo Probe was a 45° sphere-cone that entered Jupiter's atmosphere at 47.4 km/s (atmosphere relative speed at 450 km above the 1 bar reference altitude). The peak deceleration experienced was 230 g (2.3 km/s²). Peak stagnation point pressure before aeroshell jettison was 9 bars (900 kPa). The peak shock layer temperature was approximately 16000 K (the solar photosphere is merely 5800 K). Approximately 26% of the Galileo Probe's original entry mass of 338.93 kg was vaporized during the 70 second heat pulse. Total blocked heat flux peaked at approximately 15000 W/cm². By way of comparison, the peak total heat flux experienced by the Mars Pathfinder aeroshell, the highest experienced by a successful Mars lander, was 106 W/cm², and the Apollo-4 (AS-501) command module, re-entering at 10.77 km/s (atmosphere relative speed at 121.9 km altitude) experienced a peak total heat flux of 497 W/cm².

 

Granted these are in the category of 'most difficult reentries', it gives you an idea of the scale of speed and height a typical 'reentry' event occurs.

Edited January 24, 2010 by Trouble Maker