Sky Diving From Space

[jamrock]

Today I watched something impossible take place. A man flew up to the edge of space and sky dived to earth wearing only a space suit, a helmet and a parachute.

for the first part of his jump he was so high that there was no oxygen around him. He went faster than the speed of sound. No human has gone that fast before outside of some kind of vehicle.

I saw it live on CNN and I still find it hard to believe.

Symbolically, this took place on the same day the space shuttle Endeavour entered the California Science Centre. Today's jump was organized and financed by private companies. This marks a significant change from the government organized and financed space travel of the past.

It should be interesting to see what medical tests on his body reveal. NASA engineers are interested in testing the technology used in his suit. It may help them to build better space suits going forward.

Wow!!! What kind of person is mentally strong enough to do this? I am still in shock.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/14/us...html?hpt=hp_t1

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19943590

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/14/us...html?hpt=hp_t3

[Bl@ze]

Today I watched something impossible take place. A man flew up to the edge of space and sky dived to earth wearing only a space suit, a helmet and a parachute.

.....
Wow!!! What kind of person is mentally strong enough to do this? I am still in shock.

a man following in the footsteps of Col.Joe Kittenger from way way way back in the 60's i think ...

all Felix did is set a new record .. yeah the sound barrier thing was cool though

edit pree this
can start at 6:15 ish

[jamrock]

Joe Kittenger was a part of his team. He was way above the earth. The commentator said he was 3 times higher than jet liners fly. It looked like one of those science fiction movies.

Then he just stands up and jumps off into space. Crazy!!!

He then goes 833.9 miles per hour with only a parachute to save him. Doctors were wondering if his blood vessels would burst at that speed.

[danthony]

@jamrock: if it was impossible how then was it just accomplished?? lol

he is crazy, that much i'm sure of........

[jamrock]

@jamrock: if it was impossible how then was it just accomplished?? lol

I saw it live and I still don't believe it. He took around 10 minutes to to travel 24 miles. I saw him jump out in space and a few minutes later I saw him with his parachute open. Soon after that he did a perfect landing, bent down in celebration and got up to shake some people's hands.

The news reports said that a number of people have died trying this in the past. That is easy to understand. He had a bunch of ex NASA people on his team.

[duster]

He wore "special" suit ..... Not much different from been in a vehicle but i'm still impressed nevertheless.

[jamrock]

Not sure I agree. I have seen video of astronauts in suits doing maintenance work on the space station. They kept themselves tethered to the station and didn't go jumping all over the place.

This pressurized suit is new technology. CNN interviewed an ex-astronaut who spent time on the space station. He said NASA wanted more info. on the suit. It was light weight and allowed greater mobility than the ones that have been used before. He said tests would have to be done to see if that technology could be incorporated into the next generation of suits that NASA uses.

There is a greater move in the U.S. for private funding of space travel. There was quite a bit of talk about space tourism. Ordinary citizens would pay for trips into space. This jump was seen as an important step in that direction.

It also has implications for the technology used in fighter planes. They want to improve ejection seats used by pilots. From time to time, pilots have to eject from the planes at very high speeds.

Incidentally, the jump broke the live streaming record. Over eight million people watched the event on You Tube.

Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner smashed a number of records with his "edge of space" stunt - including for live streaming.

More than eight million people flocked to their devices to watch the 43-year-old break the speed of sound live on Google's YouTube site.

It is the largest number of concurrent live streams in the website's history, Google UK confirmed to the BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19947159

[ramesh]

I guess the laws of physics are more like general guidelines