Skydiver Felix Baumgartner Preparing For 120,000-Foot Supersonic Fall

CNN:

An Austrian daredevil is planning to become the first person to break the sound barrier in a free fall, without riding in a vehicle.

Read the whole story: CNN

Comments

[The Albany Kid]

12:04 AM on 05/24/2010

It was nice to see Kittinger's name in the CNN piece. The man doesn't get nearly the recognition he deserves, IMHO.

[DoctorWhoDat]

11:16 PM on 05/23/2010

If Limbaugh, Beck, O'Reilly, and Hannity were to do this together and they all jumped at the same time, and at the same time all their parachutes would fail.
The question is, Who would hit the ground first?

The correct answer is: Who cares..

[Edgar Rodriguez]

07:25 PM on 05/24/2010

wrong!!! they are all full of hot air and would float into orbit around earth, quickly coalescing and creating the hottest, brightest star in the universe, whose gravity would consume even black holes.

[DoctorWhoDat]

12:24 AM on 05/25/2010

The answer is still correct, but I will fan you for your expansive creativity.

[gifu]

09:04 PM on 05/23/2010

Check out more on Joe Kittinger...........

[bratcat]

10:35 PM on 05/23/2010

amen to that. Joe Kittinger is one of the most under reported heros of space exploration. When he jumped from space at 102,000 in 1960 this was before anybody had ever been to space. To climb that high and then jump is unimaginable. To do it again 50 years later, knowing everything we know now, doesn't even compare.

The first 1:40 of this video shows actual footage of Kittinger's jump, its amazing to watch and the music is a nice match.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lEsLcGB7Vo

[CmdrTomalak]

08:13 PM on 05/23/2010

Nice knowin' ya' Mr. Baumgartner.

[lastep]

07:35 PM on 05/23/2010

why? because this is the first toe stepping of the government to convince us that we need not fund space exploration. The government canceled the space program. At least cut it to the toes. Private business is supposed to take up the slack.
Now we are going to have things like..............5 4 3 2 1. And there it goes. The liftoff of the Burrito Express, Taco One from Taco Bell ......brought to you by YUM. The corporation that also gives you chicken from the Colonel.

This is BS BS BS

[darkpragmatist]

08:29 PM on 05/23/2010

he's austrian. i doubt he has the u.s. space program in mind. the u.s. space program may point to him as an example but that's not of his doing and says nothing about his motivation.

[MajorKong]

07:19 PM on 05/23/2010

I've known people that ejected out of aircraft at very high speeds and none of them ever said it was a fun ride.

[darkpragmatist]

06:15 PM on 05/23/2010

i don't really see how this is a test of the human body. it sounds more like a test of the suit he'll be wearing. there's no question he'd die without the suit. if he dies with the suit that only proves he needed a better suit.

[Edgar Rodriguez]

07:26 PM on 05/24/2010

The guy is gonna reach supersonic speeds, without a vehicle. how is that not a measure of human tolerance.

[darkpragmatist]

09:27 PM on 05/24/2010

because, as i said above, we already know he'd die if he tried this without the suit. he may not be using a vehicle to survive but he is using the suit to survive. the only question he's going to answer is whether or not the suit was sufficient to the task of keeping him alive. i'm not against his attempt here. i just wish he'd skip the excuses. it's about breaking a record and the thrill, period.

[chuychrist]

06:04 PM on 05/23/2010

The lead photo on HP bothered me look at it,
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/168392/thumbs/s-FELIX-BAUMGARTNER-SUPERSONIC-SKYDIVER-large300.jpg
Now look at this,
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uQEuYUqrWJE/S3Zf0LGaw0I/AAAAAAAAC2w/UwprRhbdOME/s400/21-year-old+Georgian+Luger+Nodar+Kumaritashvili+dies+luge+crash+fatal+accident+video+youtube+footage+accident+video+olympic+death+video1.png
They look very much the same. Is this a bad omen?

[HisPetGoat]

05:48 PM on 05/23/2010

Imagine if he were unprepared.

[RepugsOut08]

05:59 PM on 05/23/2010

Lol!
"Okay, I'm at 120,000 feet and, dang, did anybody see where I put my chute?"

[HisPetGoat]

06:28 PM on 05/23/2010

I have an image of Curly going "woo woo woo woo..." for five minutes on the way down.

[75thRanger]

04:32 PM on 05/23/2010

Lucky, Lucky man! Wish I was putting my knees in the breeze at 120k!

[helipilot]

01:45 PM on 07/09/2010

Some breeze. It's -90F up there, cold enough to flash freeze your knees.

[Bitsko]

04:22 PM on 05/23/2010

Good luck, Felix!

[Totto]

03:07 PM on 05/23/2010

If Baumgartner stuck his head into a swiftly moving revolving door, it would produce much the same effect for far less money.

[DocManhattan]

02:50 PM on 05/23/2010

Holy cr@p, this hardly bears thinking about ... Don't know what they're making his suit of, but it'd better be tough, because the friction is going to be insane. Then once he's supersonic there are going to be shock waves coming off him ... Seem to recall the first test pilots to break the sound barrier suffered severe buffeting as they approached Mach 1 because the aircraft didn't have the right aerodynamic design at the time. It strikes me that the human body isn't very aerodynamic either, so I suspect he might have a rough old ride.

I can sort of understand the need to know whether a jump is possible from that altitude, but it seems to me that sending a dummy fitted with strain gauges and temperature sensors up first might be a smart idea ...

[RepugsOut08]

03:38 PM on 05/23/2010

I agree with the test dummy first idea. Also, I think the excuse of proving space tourists can parachute back to Earth in an emergency, is just an excuse to break this record.
No one will be in space who isn't traveling at thousands of miles per hour. When you hit the atmosphere at that rate of speed, you'll burn like a meteor.

[Sing Out and Slap Iron]

04:09 PM on 05/23/2010

Y'all know that people have been doing this since the 50's, right?

[Sing Out and Slap Iron]

04:08 PM on 05/23/2010

When he goes supersonic, he'll be in such thin air that you'll probably not hear a sonic boom.

[DocManhattan]

05:11 PM on 05/23/2010

But the air will get thicker as he falls, and sooner or later it'll be thick enough and he'll still be supersonic until the friction slows him down. Won't that be fun?

[Vulcerco]

02:42 PM on 05/23/2010

Haven't we seen this already? Hulk (2003)

The Hulk crashes into a body of water after falling a long distance from the sky (where he was so high up that he started to lose consciousness and have ice form on him while riding on the back of a jet).

[helipilot]

01:42 PM on 07/09/2010

We're discussing the real world here, Vulcerco, not fantasy.

[jasev01]

02:01 PM on 05/23/2010

This like like in Modern Warfare 2 or any random movie. I guess just in case you feel the need to jump out your perfectly good spaceship this guy will prove its possible with enough heat shielding and adequate balls