Skydiver to try record-breaking jump from 23 miles up

By Hum
in Real World News

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Grand Master

ILikeTobacco

Posted
Posted

It's really great for the NASA, but I'm not sure about the required equipment and training making it into commercial flights.

Even if passengers could jump from current commercial aircrafts, most (if not all) would likely die anyway from parachute entaglements or breaking all their bones at landing, assuming you could fit all the equipment required to survive the lack of oxigen and the freezing temperatures.

And then parachutes are frigging expensive to maintain and handle properly, I'd bet companies would rather not go that way.

No doubt but everything is about making things smaller, more automated, and safer. This is the place to start to see if it is even possible.
Grand Master

ILikeTobacco

Posted
Posted

No jumping today either.

I don't know how's the weather usually in that area, but it seems to me that getting slow stable winds all through the balloon inflation, launch and ascension is going to be like a lottery.

It is fairly hard to get completely calm winds in most places in the US. Unlike places like Europe, we have winds coming from multiple directions. The chances of getting calm winds in pretty slim so that is why they had to get off the ground yesterday. They were saying it would be windy for the rest of the week.
Grand Master

Hum

Posted
  • Author
Posted

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner has decided against a second attempt at making a supersonic skydive over New Mexico on Thursday.

Baumgartner aborted his mission Tuesday due to high winds, but his team had hoped the weather Thursday might allow him another try.

His meteorologist Wednesday morning ruled out a Thursday jump. The team will hold a briefing to talk about next steps.

In order for the jump to take place, optimal conditions must be possible for wind, precipitation, cloud cover and solar flares.

:huh: Maybe he never will.

Grand Master

ILikeTobacco

Posted
Posted

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner has decided against a second attempt at making a supersonic skydive over New Mexico on Thursday.

Baumgartner aborted his mission Tuesday due to high winds, but his team had hoped the weather Thursday might allow him another try.

His meteorologist Wednesday morning ruled out a Thursday jump. The team will hold a briefing to talk about next steps.

In order for the jump to take place, optimal conditions must be possible for wind, precipitation, cloud cover and solar flares.

:huh: Maybe he never will.

He will. Right now its the winds that are stopping him and he has already done 2 or 3 test jumps with optimal winds. Just waiting to roll another 20.
Grand Master

*RedBull*

Posted
Posted

I know what he feels like, the winds, solar flares, black hole emissions, cloud formations, proper angle of the earth on it's axis, etc.... keep me from free falling from 20 miles up. :yes:

I say stop being a wuss and just do it already. We can either celebrate your success or be in awe in your failure. (Y)

Grand Master

ichi

Posted
Posted

He may never jump if he has to wait until things are perfect.

Yeah but things are complicated enough already even with perfect weather, I'd also keep waiting if I was him.

Heck, I jump from a mere 4k and I've spent whole days in the DZ waiting for one single frigging cloud to get out of the way :/

Grand Master

ILikeTobacco

Posted
Posted

^ I would not be surprised if this turns out to be one of the events that is delayed to the point of being canceled altogether.

Possibly but it is Red Bull and they have plenty of funds for this. Wonder how much the ballons/gas costs? That is currently the only real expense since everyone else is on salary anyway regardless of if they are doing this project or some other project.
Veteran

philcruicks

Posted
Posted

Possibly but it is Red Bull and they have plenty of funds for this. Wonder how much the ballons/gas costs? That is currently the only real expense since everyone else is on salary anyway regardless of if they are doing this project or some other project.

To an extent yes, but every time they unpack a balloon and fill it and don't launch it's wasted...they cannot re-use the balloon (and obviously the gas)....and that thing can't be cheap.

This is why the last failed launch was so bad, a few previous ones had been cancelled but they never got the balloon out so it wasn't a massive cost as you said just ongoing people really...but the last one would have been far more expensive.

Grand Master

Detection

Posted
Posted

Jump looks to be a go! balloon is inflated. Watch live now: http://www.redbullstratos.com/live/

Firefox keeps telling me "Standby" but opening in IE the stream is live now

He's at 28,000ft atm, they estimate about 120>130k ft until the balloon pops

Grand Master

DirtyLarry Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

Yep, site is working here.

Funny thing is I was going through the channels on TV and wound up stopping on it and had no idea it was what was being talked about in this thread until I clicked the website above. So yeah, it is on. (Y)

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