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Red Bull Stratos

Joined
6 November 2002
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Check out the video on the front page. For some reason I can't link it here. I recently met a guy associated with this project.

http://www.redbullstratos.com/
 
An update if anybody cares. I still think this is pretty cool. This 2nd test flight was today. Felix lands safely after manned flight test #2 from a preliminary altitude of 96,640 ft and freefall speed of about 536mph
 
Are they over thinking this jump or did the guy who did it 42 years ago just get lucky?

Joe is the guy that did it 42 years ago. He jumped at an altitude of 102,800 feet. Felix plans to jump from 120,000 feet. I don't think you can be too careful at those altitudes.

As mentioned earlier, I met a guy on this project and there is ALOT of planning going into this. There is no room for error. He is trying to break the speed of sound in a freefall. Nobody has ever done that before. Reaching and surviving that would be amazing. Pulling a parachute at that speed and safely landing is equally amazing.

From their site, "The same thin atmosphere that presents so many physiological hazards can also be Felix's ally when it comes to going supersonic. The thin air will present almost no resistance, hopefully minimizing the effect of shock waves. Although Felix will be stepping into just 1% of the earth's atmosphere, gravity is still present. He will fall at an accelerated rate up until the point air density begins to increase - he won't fall any faster, in fact his rate of descent will slow down. Moving closer to the ground air molecules increase, the temperature rises, and he will be at his slowest speed just before deploying the parachute at 5,000 ft."


Additionally, it's also advertising for Red Bull. :wink: There is bound to be drama and marketing built in.
 
14 hours to launch! You can watch it live. There will be 36 cameras on this. 3 on Felix.
 
Yeah, I'm not sure of the reasoning behind that. Perhaps weather?
 
This is awesome!

Here's the run down for today:
~8:30 a.m. ET: A helium-filled balloon with carry a capsule with Felix inside to the 23 miles above Earth. The trip takes less than three hours.
~11:30 a.m. ET: Felix will leap from his space capsule at an altitude of 120,000 feet.
~11:30:40 a.m: ET Felix should reach the speed of sound, 690 mph, within 40 seconds. The atmosphere becomes thicker as he approaches the troposphere (where we live) which slows him down.
~11:36 a.m. ET: After 5 minutes and 35 seconds in free, Felix will deploy is parachute at 5,000 feet. At this point, he needs to be going 172 mph.
~11:50 a.m. ET: Felix will reach the ground 10 to 15 minutes after he releases the chute.
The total descent lasts around 15 to 20 minutes.
 
yeah i was watching too. pretty nice video quality via youtube live. didnt even know there was a youtube live. they didnt make it easy to find that video feed though.
 
They're meeting with the team meteorologist to discuss possible weather windows this week.
 
I just refreshed the redbull page that I had never closed since the other day and he was at 120,000 feet and just getting to the door of the capsule. Good timing!!!
 
where is the video!? their site is a mish mash of tons of videos but its almost impossible to see the actual jump......wtf
 
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HqP8q5I1AHQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Nothing in HD? :mad:
 
Real excitement coming from the tube (or flat panel) for once. Cheers to Red Bull for supporting the effort!
 
You would think with something like this the least they would want to do was put a helmet cam on his head to be able to see what he is seeing while free falling. Pretty cool he reached that speed but I agree no Hi Def recording and no helmet cam is a bummer :(.
 
You would think with something like this the least they would want to do was put a helmet cam on his head to be able to see what he is seeing while free falling. Pretty cool he reached that speed but I agree no Hi Def recording and no helmet cam is a bummer :(.

There is a lot more footage that was held back for the documentary so i would bet that there will be video from a camera he was wearing included in the documentary.
 
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