Posted on 10/15/2012 2:38:56 AM PDT by Timber Rattler
Extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner made a death-defying free fall that made him the first skydiver to break the sound barrier, according to organizers.
In a journey that lasted over nine minutes, he fell at a speed of 1,342.8 km/h, which broke the sound barrier — 1,200 km/h. That amounts to Mach 1.24, which is faster than the speed of sound. No one has ever reached that speed wearing only a high-tech suit.
Baumgartner, now known as 'Fearless Felix', has broken the record for the highest free fall ever, the fastest free fall and the highest manned balloon ride, said organizers.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbc.ca ...
What a breath-taking leap! The vertical view of his drop from the capsule step was unforgettable. Felix and Red Bull gave us something an extra ordinary event, a hero and something to cheer about. Bravo!
Perhaps the Brits can fix their socialized medicine while they contemplate why they are no longer a world leader.
When you stop growing there isn’t a need for healthcare, because you are already dead.
Imagine doing it in 1962 though—without today’s technology and communications. That was over 100,000 ft even then.
Kinda makes me wonder how will they top this record? Depart from a low earth orbital platform? Obviously at some point there will be the issue of gravity itself or lack of, of course gravity will eventually pull anything in that is close enough.
What would be the true test would be to perform a manned re-entry from space, from something like the orbiting space station.
And he had a tear in his glove, but he didn’t say anything b/c he didn’t want the jump to be scrubbed. Kittinger was a crazy dude, there’s no doubt!
I mentioned to someone yesterday that I wondered if he purposely pulled the chute when he did to leave the old man with the one remaining record - longest freefall. Twenty-five seconds more didn’t seem like out of reach but hey, I’m here on the ground. I would respect him allowing Kittenger to retain that honor.
Thanks for bringing your ignorant opinion into a cool thread. The USPS funds itself, is no longer a branch of the government, but is still attached as a funding mechanism for the FERS retirement system, (cash cow), and the Government is the Board of Directors. It's operating as an almost free, private enterprise.
Ignorance like this makes me wonder why I became a monthly FreeRepublic donor.
From orbital altitude, there are orders of magnitude more kinetic energy to dispose of. Vehicles re-entering from orbit glow with bright incandescence for the hi-G part of their re-entry.
They must scrub off not Mach 1.24, but about Mach 20.
It is true that there is a distinction between being at orbital altitude and being in orbit. In the former case, you may start out with zero velocity, as in the apogee of a straight-up rocket shot; in the latter, you will begin with at least about 7 KM/S. But in either case you need to get rid of the potential energy of your altitude, which is a significant fraction of the total energy of an orbiting body.
However.....someone just might come up with a suit that could do it, in combination with a parasail made of ceramic cloth or similar material.
Which is why the taxpayers have had to bail the USPS out???
It may be that or the fact his visor heater was not working and he was transmitting that his visor was fogging over. He may have had limited vision, got a bit nervous, and opened the chute a bit early.
After a jump from 128,000 feet he may have let discretion be the better part of valor and opened his chute a bit early.
Now Redbull needs to sponsor this guy to jump out of the upcoming space launch vehicle from Burt Rutan (Virgin Galactic)...I think that thing goes up to 60 miles....I guess the hard part would be opening the door at that altitude and accidentally sucking all the passengers out at once....
They did? I thought it was merely “default” on paying the retirees that haven’t been born yet.
Didn’t know that. Amazing.
That's what I've been asking. Personally, I don't think he ever broke the sound barrier because it probably didn't exist at the height he was when he "broke" it.
I was asking myself the same thing. None of the articles I read clarified this speed of sound thing. I did read an item on the internet that said the speed of sound at 120,00 is only 200 MPH. The only thing that makes sense to me is that he broke the sea level speed of sound. I believe that speed is 791 MPH with a temperature of 59F and atmostpheric pressure of 29.92.
l would like to think they are ‘driven’ and not crazy?
Also note that when Kittinger jumped duct tape was not rated for even 100 MPH!
I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. Baumgartner gave Kittinger a visible role on the team, and it appeared to be an important and "real" job; not some kind of ceremonial bogus job. That struck me as a very classy thing to do.
I read that Maddison said he wouldn’t do that jump again for 10 million dollars. You could tell that he didn’t like the trip down one bit. He broke his hand on the landing.
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