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The guy broke a world record for doing something that doesn't benefit anybody anywhere. I mean it is a pretty cool thing but it seems like a big waste of money to me. And what if the guy had died? "Well at least he died trying to...um...trying to save...I mean, trying to prove...well he was trying to prove something cool I guess".
He was testing a new space suit, I think. The original high-altitude skydive was part of a safety test for possible scenarios of ejecting from a malfunctioning spacecraft. Like, if the shuttle had problems on the way up, would it be feasible for the crew to eject at high altitude, and what would have to be done to accomplish that. Being that tech has moved forward in the decades since the first one, a second test may have been useful.Sure, it was a stunt, but it's still tangentially useful to someone somewhere.'Marvin said:
At this point anyone with a checkbook can climb Everest. They have basically built an escalator to get up there now.Anyone that thinks money can make them do what he did or even climb Everest is a mental midget!There have been a few "meh" replies. I think some people thought "If I had enough money, I could fall out of a capsule". Kind of like getting to the top of Everest is becoming more about money.See him come out of the spin was the reason that no, not anyone could do it. JMO.'Stinger Ray said:If anyone thinks they could do what he did they are delusional. Not sure if there are many that thought "anyone could do this".'WhatDoIKnow said:That was the point it went from "anyone could do this" to "Whoa!".'Rohn Jambo said:He has cameras on his chest pack but the footage is not posted online yet. He was in trouble when he got into the death spin but fought hard to regained control.'Tiger Fan said:
Moon Base! Think of all the time and expense it will save if they can just drop you from altitude rather than bring you all the way back down.'Marvin said:'Jojo the circus boy said:
You seriously can't think of any uses for faster-than-the-speed-of-light travel?'Marvin said:'Jojo the circus boy said:
Someone seriously needs to muzzle that Rachel Maddow. So sick of the lies and distortions.You seriously can't think of any uses for faster-than-the-speed-of-light travel?'Marvin said:'Jojo the circus boy said:
'Marvin said:'Jojo the circus boy said:
Why do you hate advances in technology? I would have loved to see your reaction when we walked on the moon for the first time. 
1) Sixty five years ago today, Captain Charles Yeager became the first man to travel faster than the speed of sound in his X-1 aircraft. Daredevil Felix Baumgartner just became the first man to accomplish the same feat without a plane — or indeed any assistance at all.
'Marvin said:'Jojo the circus boy said:
2) Even getting high enough to make the record jump is a technical challenge. 128,000 feet (over 39,000 meters) is several times higher than the altitudes frequented by commercial jets. It even surpasses world altitude record of 123,520 feet for jet aircraft. So getting there isn’t simply a matter of hitching a ride on a plane. Baumgartner used a specially-designed balloon with a spaceship-sized capsule suspended underneath to make his ascent.
To put this altitude in perspective it is more than three times further than the seven miles James Cameron went below the surface of the ocean to reach the depths of the Mariana trench. Like Cameron’s journey, Baumgartner’s was a solitary one, packed into his one-man capsule suspended under the helium-filled Stratos balloon for his three-hour ride up.
3) The journey up was the cushy part of the flight for Baumgartner. His 2,900-pound (1315kg) capsule is fully climate controlled. It was damaged in a hard landing during a test jump in July, which pushed the team’s schedule back to allow for repairs. Similar to Cameron’s sub, the capsule features a pressure sphere, although a six foot one made out of fiberglass and epoxy instead of the four foot version made from metal that Cameron needed. During the ascent, the sphere is pressurized to 8 psi, about the same pressure as the atmosphere at 16,000 feet above sea level.
Much like a race car cockpit, the sphere is surrounded by a cage of chromium-molybdenum (chromoly steel) tubing. An outer insulated shell of fiberglass helps protect the capsule from the -70 degree Fahrenheit (-56.7C) temperatures. An aluminum honeycomb at the bottom of the capsule protects the sphere during landing. Additional, one-time-use crush pads of cell-paper honeycomb can withstand up to 8Gs on impact.
4) Red Bull describes its Stratos balloon as a forty-acre dry cleaning bag. Made out of strips of plastic film which are only .0008-inches (0.02mm, 20 micron) thick, the balloon material would cover nearly 2,000,000 square feet (162,000 square meters). Polyester-fiber tape is used to reinforce the material. At launch the helium-filled balloon is 55 stories high, and very thin. As it ascends, the balloon expands, eventually holding a staggering 30,000,000 cubic feet of helium as it becomes nearly round — 334 feet high and 424 feet wide. Two trucks of helium are needed to inflate the balloon, a process taking nearly an hour. The balloon is remotely emptied, returned to earth, and hopefully recovered after a jump.
5) Baumgartner’s suit is essentially a highly-ruggedized spacesuit. Eight pounds of composite materials provide him with a 3 psi environment for his entire trip down, and protects him from the extreme temperatures he’ll experience. He doesn’t need to try to breathe 3 psi air, as the suit provides him with pure oxygen.
A main and reserve chute are of course essential equipment for Baumgartner. They are only designed to be deployed up to about 172 mph (277 kph), so Baumgartner needs to slow down, by entering the thicker atmosphere closer to earth after about five minutes of free fall, before safely pulling his rip cord. There is a fail-safe which could have deployed the main chute if he had been moving at more than 115 feet (35 meters) per second at 2,000 feet (610 meters) or less altitude.
6) Google might have made waves broadcasting a low-altitude jump with Google Glass cameras and special antennas, but this jump required a much more extreme set of cameras and communication technology. The capsule itself featured nine HD cameras and three 4K cameras, along with three more high-resolution digital still cameras. Because of the altitude, critical electronics components are housed in a pressurized “keg” that contains two miles of wires.
Four of the twelve capsule cameras are rated for space and life outside the capsule, while eight of them live in nitrogen-filled housings on the exterior, and three are in the interior. All the cameras are remotely controlled from the ground, and filled three microwave channels with video during the flight. Baumgartner’s suit also had three HD video cameras, one on each thigh and one on his chest.
None of this was enough to get the jump broadcast live. A unique ground system, nicknamed JLAIR for Joint Long-range Aerospace Imaging and Relay, had to be developed to track the capsule and Baumgartner during the flight and dive. Using several massive telescopes and high-powered zoom lenses mounted on a four-ton motorized pedestal the JLAIR kept the broadcast antennas focused on target.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/137521-the-tech-behind-felix-baumgartners-stratospheric-skydive
at this being compared to landing on the moon.And I'm sure it is very impressive from a technological sense but ultimately it was just a big scientific circle-jerk.
Not surprising considering the source
So the post, two posts above yours was too hard to find?Or the other one, five posts above that one?
Apparently.
Thats ok, its understandable. Apparently these posts are moving faster than the speed of light.Apparently.
Now imagine that he's from Bakersfield.
Wow.
That's crazy. I'm shocked that he did it without hardly anyone covering it. He didn't quite stick the landing, though.
