Anyone watching the freefall attempt?

[AchtungBono]

You can watch it HERE.....he's almost at 100,000 Ft. it's so cool to see history in the making.

Good luck!

Red Bull Stratos - freefall from the edge of space - YouTube

 

[AchtungBono]

GOOD LORD!!!
That was frigging AWESOME!!!!!!!!

 

[Thora]

That was insane. But so fucking incredible. Space rules!!

 

[waynetravis]

The spinning was crazy!

 

[bono_212]

I couldn't stand the idea of watching, as I was sure he was going to somehow explode, so I'm glad to hear it went well.

 

[corianderstem]

I had not hear one whit about this until today, so have no idea what's going on. Some dude jumped from space? And lived, obviously.

 

[bono_212]

Apparently someone has done it before, as well, just not as high.

I don't understand, how do they not burn up?

 

[Jive Turkey]

The only reason the space shuttle, meteorites, satellites, etc burn when they enter the atmosphere is because when they're traveling through space, there's no wind resistance and no terminal velocity. When they reenter the atmosphere, they're traveling way faster than the terminal velocity at that altitude. The heat is just friction from the air. Since this guy was freefalling from inside the atmosphere, it would be impossible for him to travel fast enough for the friction to become an issue and his terminal velocity changed proportionally to the air density as he fell.

For comparison, a communications satellite needs to travel at about 7000 mph to stay in orbit. This guy was falling at around 720 mph at his fastest

 

[bono_212]

Thank you!

 

[martha]

833 mph. He broke the sound barrier with his body.

 

[cobl04]

Here's a fantastic article from the New York Times on the fall. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/us/felix-baumgartner-skydiving.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Looking forward to watching it when I get home. Like JT I'm mesmerised by it all

 

[Jive Turkey]

He technically destroyed the sound barrier much earlier. At that height, the speed of sound is a lot less than the 720 mph at sea level. I don't imagine there was any perceptible difference after going supersonic, but I wonder how eerie it must have felt to be falling, yet feeling no wind against your body.

Also, I love that Joe Kittinger was the voice on his radio

 

[martha]

My husband's 50th birthday was today, and he was so pleased this happened today. He's loved having Chuck Yeager's record on his birthday, and now this. He knew that when it was postponed last week that it would happen on his birthday. He just knew.

Joe Kittinger's capsule is at the Udvar-Hazy (sp?) branch of the Air and Space Museum. It's bitchin' just to see it. I'm looking forward to seeing this one at some point.

 

[bono_212]

833 mph. He broke the sound barrier with his body.

This was the other thing I have expected to just kind of make him implode.

 

[Jive Turkey]

This was the other thing I have expected to just kind of make him implode.

It's really a kind of arbitrary barrier. When you think about it, at altitude, there's no reason there should be any real physical effects that there wouldn't be 10 mph under the limit. There's simply not enough matter in the atmosphere that high up to create anything like a sonic boom

 

[martha]

This was the other thing I have expected to just kind of make him implode.

Just going that fast under any circumstances.....

 

[dazzledbylight]

a sonic beep then ?

can't believe i didn't know about this! wow

going to check outhat article thanks cobl

and happy birthday to marth's Hubby!

what a fascinating article! testing all this stuff out and to see our earth like that our blue/green/tawny/white marble "floating" in space! amazing!

 

[cobl04]

Wow, freaking amazing. So awesome to watch. Anyone seen an interview so far where he's described what it felt like? Falling, falling, falling? That's what I'm really interested in. Travelling at over 1,000km/h. Wow.

Saw this on Facebook and had a good laugh, in spite of the horrendous spelling mistake

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

That was insane. At least CNN cut away at appropriate times, in case something happened. I can't even imagine doing regular skydiving, let alone that.

 

[BoMac]

Stratos jump successful! ORIGINAL VERSION - YouTube

 

[bono_212]

 

[cobl04]

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

See what Felix Baumgartner saw during his jump - CBS News