Red Bull Stratos

[mitt]

Anyone found a good video of the actual jump and free fall?  I had to stop watching live right at 120,000ft.


mitt

[Monsterlover]

I have not seen any on board footage of the jump, just what was shot from the capsule and from the ground/helos

[derby]

Anyone found a good video of the actual jump and free fall?  I had to stop watching live right at 120,000ft.


mitt

full jump:



onboard:

[fastwin]

Like the lunar landing I think it was all faked in a studio!

Seriuosly, that was some hard core cool shit. Imagine what was going through his mind as he saluted and stepped off the edge of the capsule. Yeah, I have gone on some good rides but nothing like that one. The "death spiral" was pretty damn scary. Glad he made it through that trauma and landed on his feet.

Glad to be alive to say I got to watch it. Yeager busted the speed of sound a couple of years before I was here... but how cool to have both of those events in what's left of my memory banks!

[cokey]

Awesome.  Damn high, can't imagine what being up there feels like..   how come he didn't free fall longer though?

[He Man]

Awesome.  Damn high, can't imagine what being up there feels like..   how come he didn't free fall longer though?

that time lost was because he accelerated to a much higher speed and needed more time to decelerate. so his overall avereage speed was higher over a longer distance. hence it was a shorter time. its hard to imagine that  he jumped almost 25,000+ feet higher yet was more than 20 seconds faster!

[cokey]

Ah ok..  That view was crazy

[Uncle Mofo]

Awesome.  Damn high, can't imagine what being up there feels like..   how come he didn't free fall longer though?

I think he did not want to break the longest freefall record out of respect to the old guy

[He Man]

He didnt have enough altitude to do it. he had 40 more seocnds to cover, but only 6,000 feet to do it.

with all that weight on him and all that speed hes carrying, hes going much faster than terminal velocity for a normal human being.

[Kopfjager]

He didnt have enough altitude to do it. he had 40 more seocnds to cover, but only 6,000 feet to do it.

with all that weight on him and all that speed hes carrying, hes going much faster than terminal velocity for a normal human being.

I beg to differ. Here's a jump with a tennis ball.

[Kopfjager]

With a car. 

[Buckethead]

I beg to differ. Here's a jump with a tennis ball.

Which shows you exactly what He Man is talking about.

To put it in ballistics terms you're more familiar with, all the extra gear on him gave him a higher sectional density than your average skydiver. Laid out flat, because of the extra mass of his equipment, air resistance didn't present a proportional up-force until Felix hit a higher velocity than your average skydiving human.

In the video you posted, the skydivers initially go vertical to catch up to the tennis ball, then flatten out to stay close to it. As they try repeatedly to grab it, they wind up going below it, then flattening out to "float" back up to it.

[Kopfjager]

I think some dude named 'Newton' covered this a few years ago. 

[Buckethead]

That all objects ACCELERATE at the same speed, but their terminal velocity is determined by sectional density and air density. A feather has a very low sectional density. It'll accelerate at the same speed as a penny or a human in a vacuum. If Felix had dropped a feather at the same time he hopped off the ledge, it likely would have kept up with him for the first 60,000 feet or so as there was no air to resist its fall. The exact same reason he was able to go supersonic. Add an atmosphere and the feather's terminal velocity goes to crap.

[Kopfjager]

That all objects ACCELERATE at the same speed, but their terminal velocity is determined by sectional density and air density. A feather has a very low sectional density. It'll accelerate at the same speed as a penny or a human in a vacuum. If Felix had dropped a feather at the same time he hopped off the ledge, it likely would have kept up with him for the first 60,000 feet or so as there was no air to resist its fall. The exact same reason he was able to go supersonic. Add an atmosphere and the feather's terminal velocity goes to crap.

Yeah, but if a chicken and half could lay an egg and a half in a day and a half, how long would it take a grasshopper with a wooden leg to kick all the seeds out of a dill pickle?