Who watched Felix Baumgartner?

[Pentagram]

I just finished watching the Red Bull Stratosphere jump... Absolutely amazing.
It was a livestream on http://www.redbullstratos.com/live but it's done now.
YouTube had a few errors hosting the livestream for over 6 million viewers..

He free fell from 128,000 feet for over 4 minutes, broke the sound barrier, fell at 719 mph..

Here he is stood on the edge of space..

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[Gormador]

I would have loved to. Unfortunately I was in a train when it happened.
Waiting for the recording now ^^

[Last_Jedi_Standing]

I watched it. It was pretty impressive. He didn't break the longest free fall record, but he got highest balloon ascent, fastest free fall, and highest free fall.

[Pentagram]

Yeah, he missed the longest free fall by about 20 seconds.. The previous record was set in 1960

[morvelaira]

Also note - that previous record from 1960? Yeah, that one wasn't planned. Experimental aircraft testing during the early days of the space program. Two pilots had to bail out. The one who has the record is the one who survived.

[danielngtiger]

Ouch. I didn't know that that was how the record got set. Regardless he still holds it today, and was actually at mission control for the jump, which was pretty awesome.

[Battosay]

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xubusk ... rt?start=4

Breathtaking. That's all there is to say.

[jorgebonafe]

How is it that a ship coming into the atmosphere will burn and he didn't? He wasn't high enough for that?

[BinoAl]

How is it that a ship coming into the atmosphere will burn and he didn't? He wasn't high enough for that?

A ship has more mass behind it; It's comparable to how a rock falls faster than a feather. A person can't reach the speeds (in freefall, at least) that would create enough friction to make that much heat

[Pentagram]

How is it that a ship coming into the atmosphere will burn and he didn't? He wasn't high enough for that?

A ship has more mass behind it; It's comparable to how a rock falls faster than a feather. A person can't reach the speeds (in freefall, at least) that would create enough friction to make that much heat

Although, at around 60,000 feet without a protective suit all fluids in your body WOULD boil :P Fun fact from the commentator.

[PureZaros]

What I don't understand is how he managed to break the sound barrier. Wouldn't he have stopped accelerating due to terminal velocity by then?

[Mason11987]

What I don't understand is how he managed to break the sound barrier. Wouldn't he have stopped accelerating due to terminal velocity by then?

Terminal velocity is not a constant. It's dependent on the amount of air resistance (which itself is dependent on the density of the air, and the surface area moving through it). Where he was there was very little air, so terminal velocity was MUCH MUCH higher.

[BinoAl]

Although, at around 60,000 feet without a protective suit all fluids in your body WOULD boil :P Fun fact from the commentator.

Would that be considered boiling? I always thougt there was a different word for state changes when it's caused by pressure rather than temperature

[gftweek]

Although, at around 60,000 feet without a protective suit all fluids in your body WOULD boil :P Fun fact from the commentator.

Would that be considered boiling? I always thougt there was a different word for state changes when it's caused by pressure rather than temperature

It's always boiling when a liquid becomes a gas, different pressures just mean different temperatures are required as the boiling point changes. You may be thinking of sublimation when a solid becomes a gas without liquefying in between?

The odd thing is the speed of sound is slower the lower the pressure, so he well surpassed the speed of sound for the local air pressure.

I also thought it was cool that the only person he wanted on the radio was the previous height record holder who was an advisor on the project.

How is it that a ship coming into the atmosphere will burn and he didn't? He wasn't high enough for that?

A ship has more mass behind it; It's comparable to how a rock falls faster than a feather. A person can't reach the speeds (in freefall, at least) that would create enough friction to make that much heat

Mass has nothing to do with it, air resistance is a big factor (as otherwise a rock and a feather fall at the same rate), but it's mainly due to entry velocity. He started within the atmosphere with very little velocity, whereas a ship already has considerable velocity when it hits the atmosphere.

[BinoAl]

Mass has nothing to do with it, air resistance is a big factor (as otherwise a rock and a feather fall at the same rate), but it's mainly due to entry velocity. He started within the atmosphere with very little velocity, whereas a ship already has considerable velocity when it hits the atmosphere.

More mass would mean more force working against air resistance, and more friction resulting, wouldn't it?

[danielngtiger]

If I am not mistaken, the only reason he did not burn up was because he entered in such a way that air resistance was greatly reduced (i.e. almost vertical). The necessaryness of this was why it was so scary when he went into that tumble (I was certainly holding my breath).

[Mason11987]

If I am not mistaken, the only reason he did not burn up was because he entered in such a way that air resistance was greatly reduced (i.e. almost vertical). The necessaryness of this was why it was so scary when he went into that tumble (I was certainly holding my breath).

I think him tumbling was the case because there wasn't sufficient air resistance so he couldn't orient himself. Once he fell far enough so that air resistance became an issue, it also allowed him to orient himself properly. I don't think there was ever a real danger of him burning up, he wasn't going fast enough.

[LupusExMachina]

I think of the whole thing as neat playing.
It'a pretty awesome, but I think it's more like popular science than actually practical science.
I might be wrong though and I got to give him that he probably has the best pickup lines on the planet now.
Wrestle a bear and you might come close.... :D

[tedium]

regarding buring up... isn't that mostly due to the difference in speeds between something outside of the atmosphere and something within it? when an object enters from space, it's the horizontal motion of air in the upper atmosphere spinning around the earth that provides the most resistance, because they can't match the earths spin, rather than the resistance of moving through the air vertically towards the earth. things burn up from the difference between their speed relative to earths surface and the speed of the atmosphere relative to earths surface. i hope i explained that well enough for someone to tell me if it's correct :)

edit: so to make it relevant, he didn't burn up because he never left earths atmosphere. he only really needed the suit because the atmosphere that high is so devoid of mass that there is a massive amount pressure that would have torn him in all directions (rather than collapsing him inwards). he would also need oxygen, but that's a pretty basic thing to build into the space suit he was kitted out in.

[DaveYanakov]

I'm on two different sides here. On the one hand, taken as the publicity stunt it is at face value, it's a tremendous waste of resources. On the other hand, it seems to have sparked new interest in space programs among the general population, which was probably unintended but should still be celebrated.

[pgelinas]

He didn't burn up because he wasn't going fast enough and there wasn't enough resistance. Jet fighters can go up to 3 machs I think (I'm no expert) but they don't burn, even though they are lower in the atmosphere: they are aerodynamic enough so that there is so little resistance. Baumgartner was the same: his surface contact was somewhat aerodynamic so there wasn't as much resistance as a spaceship. When the spaceship enters the atmosphere, it enters with its flat-face against its entry vector and hence builds up a huge resistance=lots of friction=lots of heat. They do it that way to slow down the spaceship enough to be manoeuvrable/don't rip the parachutes.

I think another way to say that is that you're only going to generate enough friction if you are above your terminal velocity, probably well above. The body will then have to slow down, and it will do so due to the friction, hence the heat.

[DaveYanakov]

Ok, so the assumptions and lack of solid fact in here is starting to bug me. There are two reasons he didn't burn on reentry to the atmosphere. First and most important is the fact that he did not actually reenter the atmosphere. He never left it in the first place. While it can be considered the edge of space if you are feeling generous, his jump height was in the middle regions of the stratosphere. Weather balloons usually fly higher than that.

Second, objects in low earth orbit are travelling at velocities that are very difficult to even imagine. Felix's velocity of more than 800 miles per hour is very impressive but it does not even begin to compare to the speed of something that is hitting the atmosphere 120 kilometers up and traveling at 18,000 miles per hour.

This is an impressive feat, jumping from four times the height that anyone sane would even consider. What it was not was a jump from orbit.