The man who's going to jump 23 miles to Earth this week

First of all, this guy has huge stones
With that said, there are some things that I dont understand.
First of all, how in the hell can his suit stand up to re-entering the atmosphere?
You seen what happened to the shuttle when it lost a few heat panels.
Secondly, his parachute and cords must be made out of some kind of tough ass futuristic material to keep from ripping apart when its deployed

Edit, I cannot figure out whats wrong with this link

[url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2213679/Felix-Baumgartner--Fearless-Felix-try-break-sound-barrier-free-falling-space.html]link[/ur l]

Should anyone else be planning the feat Felix Baumgartner will undertake on Tuesday morning, this weekend would be a time of sleepless nights and dread-filled days. For 23 miles up on the edge of space, and wearing only a pressurised suit and a parachute, he will pause at the hatch of his tiny capsule as it ascends into the heavens beneath one of the biggest balloons ever made. Red Bull Stratos announced Friday that the jump by extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner have been moved from Monday to Tuesday thanks to a cold front with gusty winds. The jump can only be made if winds on the ground are under 2 mph for the initial launch a balloon carrying Baumgartner. Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Why won't his parachute rip apart? simple.

Terminal Velocity. Whether he jumps from 1 mile or 23 miles, he will end up descending at the same speed.

reply to post by jidnum


No, hes attempting to break the sound barrier.

Of the sceptics who will be holding their hands in front of their eyes as he hurtles towards Earth at nearly 700mph, he says simply: ‘I think they underestimate the skills of a skydiver.’ Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Chalk up another one to Star Trek.

In Generations there's a scene in the script which calls for kirk doing orbital skydiving.

reply to post by Juggernog


Well i'm pretty sure he will slow down enough before he releases the chute. Never mind the chute breaking, if he is going to descend at close to 700 mph then pull the cord he would break bones in his body.

Don't get me to lying now but as I understand my basic physics....the Shuttle became a ball of super heated plasma because it was decelerating from a re-entry speed typically around 17,000 miles an hour.

How fast does the Shuttle re-enter?

That answer seems well sourced at the bottom BTW...

Anyway... The guy isn't 'hitting' the atmosphere from space and basically coming to a dead stop in moments from an insanely high speed....so he won't become a shooting star. He's getting there to jump by balloon....so no speed issues at all, really.

Maybe Phage or another could chime in, but if NASA could actually afford the fuel for braking and had a way to handle the craft coming in so slow without just stalling and crashing...I believe they'd avoid much, if not all of reentry if they COULD slow and drop back down without that relative speed issue...?

Did you see this:

www.space.com...

reply to post by roughycannon


Cool, thats a little more informative than my source...
This quote explains the speed issue and the reason why hes deploying the chute at 5k feet

As Baumgartner descends he enters thicker air. His speed slows but he risks going into a deadly spin so violent that he could lose consciousness.

And I also read that his parachute is the same type that fighter jets use but I still cant understand how his suit can survive the extreme heat.

His suit has got 20 mins air.

It takes 3 hours to reach altitude