"Reaching 1,357.64 km/h (843.6 mph)—Mach 1.25—Baumgartner broke the sound barrier on his descent,[6] thus becoming the first human to do so without any form of engine power.[4][7] Preliminary measurements show Baumgartner also broke two other world records.

It's not space if you can free fall from it. Just more redBull[$hit] propaganda.

How so? Gravity will pull you in to a free fall even if you're not in the atmosphere. Granted, if someone actually did free fall from outerspace, odds are they'd burn up, but there's no reason you can', physically. Satellites do it all the time. :)

I was surprised to see that for the first minute or so there was just no air buffeting at all, due I guess to the fact the air is so thin up there and the speed was still relatively low. Then, almost suddenly, buffeting, accompanied by a loss of control (and the guy is obviously scared to death. Then he regains control and the airspeed rapidly drops.

He said he almost passed out. I'm assuming there was a barometric device that would have released the chute automatically.

The ISS is continually falling towards Earth, that'll be the Earth's gravitational pull. So is that NOT a Space Station. Maybe it needs to be renamed the The IASS: The International Almost Space Station.

Come to think about it, is our home, EARTH, in space? Oh yeah, it is. But it has it's own Gravitational Pull.

Interesting.....

Grazie

There's no real definition of "space" or to be more correct "outer space" however by convention it's certainly true that Baumgartner did not jump from space.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_space

The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale has established the Kármán line at an altitude of 100 km (62 mi) as a working definition for the boundary between aeronautics and astronautics. This is used because at an altitude of about 100 km (62 mi), as Theodore von Kármán calculated, a vehicle would have to travel faster than orbital velocity in order to derive sufficient aerodynamic lift from the atmosphere to support itself.[7]

The United States designates people who travel above an altitude of 50 miles (80 km) as astronauts.[68]

NASA's mission control uses 76 mi (122 km) as their re-entry altitude (termed the Entry Interface), which roughly marks the boundary where atmospheric drag becomes noticeable (depending on the ballistic coefficient of the vehicle), thus leading shuttles to switch from steering with thrusters to maneuvering with air surfaces.[69]

That said it's still a long way down and I for one would be concerned about missing Earth all together.

Bob "There's no real definition of "space" or to be more correct "outer space"

Can one be "more correct"? I understood "correct" as being an absolute. Can't have degrees of "correct" -ness. Just thought I'd add some gravitas to this downward spiral.

And yes, Bob, I understand.

Grazie

[I]"Can one be "more correct"?"[/I]

Yes, there can be degrees of truth e.g. bayesian logic where there are values between True and False.
That's arguably not quite the same as "correct:" so maybe you're correct and I should have said [I]to be more specific[/I].

Back to the topic, the Moon is also falling towards the Earth however you can neither jump from the ISS anymore than you can from the Moon and end up on the surface of the Earth, even if you pushed off the ISS with all your strength.

Of course over a long period of time you and the ISS will crash into the Earth. Oddly enough the Moon will not, it's slowly leaving Earth Orbit, bye bye Moon :( Once it's gone life on Earth will be very difficult. Who would have though that little round rock so far away is so vital to our existence.

Contrary to what some might think though these very high altitude jumps are not just grand standing. There is some interest in trying to devise a way to get people from satellites such as the ISS back to Earth without a capsule and rockets. Even if it can be made to work it'll only be for use as the last resort.

Bob.

It's not space if you can free fall from it.


You confuse orbital velocity from your use of the word "space".

Technically anything that is in a stable orbit is still in a free fall towards the gravity well (earth). Astronauts in the space station are "weightless" because they are constantly in a freefall towards the earth. There is lots of gravity where they are. Velocity perpendicular to gravitational acceleration keeps them from getting closer to the gravitational center.

In a re-entry vehicle in stable orbit you feel weightless, the instant you do a retro burn and lose velocity you instantly begin to actually "feel" gravity. More and more as you lose velocity.

All the parachutes I've jumped with featured "A.A.D." Automatic Activation Device, that, depending on a number of circumstances, would deploy the parachute. Stuff like altitude, spin rate (I think), a small charge would sever the rip cord and chutes are spring loaded, and designed to catch air BIG TIME. Also, a complete secondary emergency backup chute is there should you have to "cut away" your primary chute. fascinating and safe technology in skydiving...
So you gotta believe they had that, and redundancy for this guy's jump.

BTW how does gravity work?

I thought you know you are in space when no-one can hear you scream.

BTW how does gravity work?

it sucks ;-)

BTW how does gravity work?

it sucks ;-)


I like.
;-)

...Stuff like altitude, spin rate (I think), ...
So you gotta believe they had that, and redundancy for this guy's jump.


I have wondered about that (a spin chute). He was in a pretty violent spin for a while until he gained control. He said he was about to pass out. The air was awfully thin up where he was thus affording difficult opportunity for control.

I thought you know you are in space when no-one can hear you scream.

Or clean, either way it's all good entertainment.

I think the video is incredible, as the jump itself. As far as an escape procedure from an orbiting ship such as ISS, I can't image a personal (non-capsule) device that would slow an astronaut from the ISS orbital speed (appox. 17,000 mph) to something near the Earth's rotational speed (approx. 1050 mph at the equator) to allow for a free-fall reentry without injury (and in a timely manner).

He definitely did not get anywhere near space. He didn't even get close to exiting the middle of the earth's atmosphere. There are still clouds as high as twice his max altitude.

Technically everything in orbit is slowly falling towards earth, but this guy just fell down like a sack of rocks dropped from any rooftop. let us not compare completely different things.

By my definition space starts once you leave the galaxy, but even by more conventional definitions, this was not anywhere near space. It was just pretty high for a human which is not saying much at all. And I hate Red Bull, so there's that.

"And I hate Red Bull, so there's that."
You seem to pretty much hate everything...

"By my definition space starts once you leave the galaxy..."
The GALAXY? So you perfect a spaceship that lets you travel at near the speed of light, and after you've traveled for 20,000+ years, you still don't think you're in space yet?

Methinks there are a lot of armchair astronauts here.
23 miles up is a huge jump, that broke all existing records.

Well, he definitely got above 99.9% of the earth's atmosphere. I don't recall just where the atmosphere technically ends, but of course it's a continuum, with molecules spaced further and further apart.

According to Wikipedia, orbiting objects 100 miles up ("Low Earth Orbit," or LEO) experience rapid orbital decay due to atmospheric drag. This altitude is where nearly all the astronaut flights took place and where the Space Station is. So there are still air molecules at this height, four times higher than this jump.

Someone once explained to me that an object in orbit is falling "towards" earth just as fast as one not in orbit; the difference is that the orbiting object is traveling forward so fast that by the time it would be hitting the earth the earth is now behind it, and the process repeats continuously.

>>>>The GALAXY? So you perfect a spaceship that lets you travel at near the speed of light, and after you've traveled for 20,000+ years, you still don't think you're in space yet?<<<<<

Traveling for 20 000 gets you nowhere, even if you could travel at the speed of light.
In universe's terms 20 000 light years is less than you trying to get up off your couch to get a beer and getting about 1mm of distance between your ass and the couch.

The closest galaxy is 2.5 million years away and there are hundreds of billions of galaxies out there. In other words our entire galaxy is like a pimple on a pimple on some microscopic life form's ass.

And good luck with that close to the speed of light spaceship thing. Not gonna happen.

>>>
Well, he definitely got above 99.9% of the earth's atmosphere<<<<

Not even close. There are clouds at altitudes twice as high, and the atmosphere apparently goes all the way to 700km ( just looked up that one because I didn't know it either. ).

100km is used as the border where outer space starts and he only got to 39km.

Heh, if you can see the curvature of the horizon, you're up there.
Eagerly awaiting the personal video of our own space-jumping pundits.
;?)

Some of us have actual talents and better things to do than being a free falling sack of %$^& with Red Bull logos plastered all over it.