Jump from 120,000 feet (Live)

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Youre right Adler... I told my wife his hesitation in mission control countdown checklist response was because he was hoping for the magical 130,000ft mark. Just my guess. Comm didn't seem to be intermittent technically. I think when when Felix realized that 130k wasn't gonna happen, he got his azz in gear. My two cents anyway based upon his civil daredevil background.

I wonder how much this endeavor cost. I bet scores of $millions.
 
Well, i don't know how measurement where done for sure.
Gps, alphano, i donnot know...
But, there was a measurement and what looks as a real control room, even if "low" budgeted. Listen to Felix's breathing between announced 728 and 729 mph.
Sure, the man was real fast when spinning and beeing bounced all over while reaching dense atmosphere.
I keep it on record, but still on .mts, bit heavy.
Asking questions is always good my friend, and frames kept will tell the story i guess.
Anyhow, Felix jumped !
Ps : we had speed informations, but no height information, yes.
Was it different with other broadcastings ?
Control interventions were plagued with "space specialists" blahblah's'and thus non-understandable...
 
Thank you Matt308, i was beginning to think i was alone beeing "donkeyed" by announcers.
 
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Maximum speed has been announced a 833.9 mph on the BBC coverage. Note that the 'live' broadcast had a built-in 4 second delay - just in case!
 
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Bejeebers thats some speed to doing oh natural well next to fast jets it is !! Fair enough EIG at least it was higher than initially envisaged then - if not from the hoped for height eh

Donkeyed by the announcers... Eeyuw, for some reason that comment makes me think of 'Kinky Kelly' and some Newsman ala 'Clerks 2', thanks Kevin Smith (lol) must br the donkey..
 
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Matt308 said:
And the heir gandson just went to jail I thought I read a few weeks ago.
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That'll be Vorayuth Yoovidhya. He killed a Police Officer whilst speeding in his Ferrari through Bangkok. The family of the dead officer has been paid off to the tune of $97,000 (US),far less than the value of the Ferrari, to protect him from a civil law suit but he still faces criminal charges. No trial date has been set but I'd be amazed if he ended up with anything like the possible maximum 10 year sentence. In Thailand wealth,privelege and particularly money talk.

I watched Baumgartner's jump. Great stuff,though you wonder what makes people want to do such things! George Mallory famously wanted to climb Everest "because it's there",I suppose Baumgartner made the jump because he could.

Cheers

Steve
 
stona said:
I watched Baumgartner's jump. Great stuff,though you wonder what makes people want to do such things! George Mallory famously wanted to climb Everest "because it's there",I suppose Baumgartner made the jump because he could.
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Read my signature.....
well for all the effort he went through i'm just glad he broke all the records he wanted to !
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not quite. He didn't get the longest time in freefall. He missed that one by about 20 seconds.

I think it is fitting that Kittinger kept one record.
 
While I understand the physics, wanting the highest descent speed and longest freefall time is somewhat at odds. I'm sure he's not too terribly upset about that dichotomy.
 
But at the press conference afterwards, they both said the same thing. "Records are made to be broken"
Baumgartener even sadi that he hopes, in time to be sitting there helping another young guy break his record.
 
gumbyk said:
Read my signature.....
Click to expand...

That's true,we certainly need risk takers. We also need people who don't throw themselves off cliffs,antennae or from high altitude balloons

For every Mallory,Mestre or Baumgartner (you'll notice that the first two both died taking those risks) we need a Dickens,Brunel or Fermi.

Steve
 
The difference is that Baumgartner knew exactly what risks he was taking. They spent 5 years analysing those risks, working through them,minimising them.

Don't dismiss the risks taken by authors. Some of the best works of fiction have been controversial, and carried risks to the author. Maybe not to life, but certainly to reputation (although at times, lives have been threatened).
 
gumbyk said:
The difference is that Baumgartner knew exactly what risks he was taking.
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They all try to know the risks. When doing something never before done it is not possible to know exactly what they are. Noone had previously jumped from as high as Baumgartner,ascended Everest or free dived as deep as Mestre. They would all have had information from previous attempts but that's not quite the same.
Mallory was an experienced mountaineer on his third Everest expedition when he died. He may actually have reached the summit but as Hillary quite rightly said,getting back down is part of a succesful ascent.
Audrey Mestre was one of the best and most experienced free divers.
The problem is that one error of judgement,no matter how careful the preparation,can have fatal consequences for these people. Mallory had made bad decisions before and got away with it. Mestre allowed her husband's judgement to cloud her own.

Books can get you killed. Even ownership of the "wrong" (Catholic) books,here in England,could have fatal consequences at one time. Funnily enough its usually on religious grounds as Salman Rushdie would be all too aware.

Steve
 
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I don't know about Mestre, so can't comment on it.

But, 5 years of R&D and testing means (for all intents and purposes) that they knew what they didn't know. But, yes, there were things they didn't know, but, IMO, it was so little as to be termed a "black swan" event. Something deemd to be so remote as almost impossible.

As for Mallory, the fact that he had tried and failed twice previous, introduced risks in itself. Risks which are now understood.

Not that I'm trying to take anything away from Baumgartner, it was a massive achievement, it just wasn't a "daredevil" stunt.
 
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