Highest, fastest freefall attempt @ 12:00 UTC today

[mips]

http://www.redbullstratos.com/live/

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

October 9, 2012 has been set for Baumgartner to attempt to go supersonic when he jumps from a record altitude of 23 miles (37 km) over New Mexico.[19] Following a bad weather forecast on 5 October 2012 the jump attempt was rescheduled for October 9 2012

[IWantFroyo]

He would reach terminal velocity and slow down quickly.

Of course, the atmosphere is thinner where he's jumping, so he might make it.

[mips]

He would reach terminal velocity and slow down quickly.

Of course, the atmosphere is thinner where he's jumping, so he might make it.

He got pretty close on a previous jump at lower altitude so lets see what happens.

[oldos2er]

Just been aborted due to high winds.

[mips]

Just been aborted due to high winds.

Might be very selfish of me but kinda glad as the power here went off so I would have missed the live stream. Also safer for him, win-win situation :)

[KiwiNZ]

Crazy, what next Bungy Jumping off the ISS ?

Crazy people, also throwing up in a helmet at the edge of space yuk and how is the carrot man supposed to get there:p

[mips]

Looks like they are going ahead today!

He's in the capsule and they are busy inflating the balloon.

http://www.redbullstratos.com/live/

[wojox]

sweet

[MG&TL]

[...] how is the carrot man supposed to get there:p

I don't envy the guy, but it sounds exciting.

Kiwi, dare I ask who the carrot man is?

[mips]

Just launched and now at about 9000ft / 2750m

[Cheesemill]

Brilliant.

I've been waiting to watch this for ages.
Let's just hope his chute opens :)

[oldos2er]

sweet

+1

[mips]

Gonna take about another 120 minutes to get to jumping altitude.

Really cool that he chose Joseph Kittinger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kittinger) as his man on the ground, he's the only guy communicating directly with him. He must be reliving some memories at this moment.

[odiseo77]

Exciting! Thanks for sharing.

[oldos2er]

Gonna take about another 120 minutes to get to jumping altitude.

Really cool that he chose Joseph Kittinger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kittinger) as his man on the ground, he's the only guy communicating directly with him. He must be reliving some memories at this moment.

I don't know if you've seen video of Kittinger's jump, but it looks incredibly crude compared to what's happening today.

Video here: http://archive.org/details/JoeKittingerDive

[mips]

I don't know if you've seen video of Kittinger's jump, but it looks incredibly crude compared to what's happening today.

Yeah it did look pretty crude. Saw his jump some years ago on one of the channels like national geogrphic or discovery etc.

[lovinglinux]

Almost 3 million people watching live on YouTube. Cool.

[mips]

Anybody know if any of the international news channels are covering this (cnn, bbc, sky, rt etc)?

[lovinglinux]

Anyone experiencing streaming issues? Sometimes the connection is lost and I get just TV noise and an error message from YouTube. I hope this doesn't happen when he jumps.

[sharathpaps]

Thanks for the heads up. I had thought that this was over.. been busy at work the last few days. He is approaching 85,000 feet just now.

To the person above me. I haven't had any streaming issues so far.

[mips]

Anyone experiencing streaming issues? Sometimes the connection is lost and I get just TV noise and an error message from YouTube. I hope this doesn't happen when he jumps.

Working fine here but I'm using the 240p resolution. 480p also works for me but I have limited data so I stick with 240p. Might bump it up when he jumps to see it in HD :D

[lovinglinux]

Thanks for the heads up. I had thought that this was over.. been busy at work the last few days. He is approaching 85,000 feet just now.

To the person above me. I haven't had any streaming issues so far.

Thanks. I have changed to 480p and it got better. It seems the 360p stream is too busy serving too many viewers. The 720p also works well, but it has too many buffering interruptions.

[lovinglinux]

Working fine here but I'm using the 240p resolution. 480p also works for me but I have limited data so I stick with 240p. Might bump it up when he jumps to see it in HD :D

I am testing the 720p again too see if it will remain stable for the jump, otherwise I will stay on 480p.

[lovinglinux]

Almost 3 million people watching live on YouTube. Cool.

Surpassed 4 million already. Wow.

[lovinglinux]

Anybody know if any of the international news channels are covering this (cnn, bbc, sky, rt etc)?

The narrator just mentioned there are 50 network stations, from all around the world, covering the event. I don't have traditional TV anymore, so I can't tell if they are broadcasting here.

[Cheesemill]

@lovinglinux

Streaming @1080p from YouTube here with no issues.

I've just had a look and it appears that it's not being shown on UK terrestrial TV, doesn't really matter as my PC is plugged into my TV so its HD goodness all the way.

[mips]

So far he broke the record for the highest manned balloon flight!

[lovinglinux]

Surpassed 4 million already. Wow.

5 million mark!!!!

[Cheesemill]

Did anyone else just notice that he stopped ascending and now he's shooting up again :confused:

[mips]

Did anyone else just notice that he stopped ascending and now he's shooting up again :confused:

Yeah, shooting up at a rapid rate but they are gonna vent some gas from the balloon to compensate.

[lovinglinux]

Yeah, shooting up at a rapid rate but they are gonna vent some gas from the balloon to compensate.

It is descending now.

[lovinglinux]

5 million mark!!!!

6 million and going up...

[lisati]

Watching some coverage on TV at the moment.....

edit: *mutters quietly* - it seems to be one of those "we'll come back to this when we have more" type clips.

[lovinglinux]

He didn't make the free fall record?????

[lisati]

He didn't make the free fall record?????

The coverage I'm seeing is interspersed with regular news items. He's got the altitude record......

edit: life beyond the TV & forum is calling for my attention..... :(

[lovinglinux]

The coverage I'm seeing is interspersed with regular news items. He's got the altitude record......

edit: life beyond the TV & forum is calling for my attention..... :(

He's got the altitude jump record, fastest free fall record, balloon flight altitude record, but the free fall time record is uncertain at this point.

Awesome. Great stuff to watch.

[sharathpaps]

He did not make the longest free fall record but I think he made the other 3. Not sure. That was one awesome landing :-D Soft as a feather.

[mips]

He didn't make the free fall record?????

Edit: Apparently not. He got the speed and altitude records though.

[mips]

Looks like Felix killed Youtube, no shame though seeing as they got close to 8 million viewers! Probably another record.

[kow777]

Looks like Felix killed Youtube, no shame though seeing as they got close to 8 million viewers! Probably another record.
I have never seen Youtube down until today. A massive feat in itself.

[lovinglinux]

Looks like Felix killed Youtube, no shame though seeing as they got close to 8 million viewers! Probably another record.



I have never seen Youtube down until today. A massive feat in itself.

OMG, he killed YouTube.

:guitar:

[lovinglinux]

YouTube is back online.

[kow777]

YouTube is back online.
But it will go down in history, the day Red Bull killed Youtube. I think from now on, the only carbonated beverage I will enjoy is Red Bull.

[lisati]

Some coverage from the TV station I was watching earlier is available here:
http://www.3news.co.nz/Baumgartner-survives-freefall-from-space/tabid/1160/articleID/272703/Default.aspx

I don't know if the video clip will be watchable outside New Zealand (possibly not) but there is an article there.

[mips]

Some coverage from the TV station I was watching earlier is available here:
http://www.3news.co.nz/Baumgartner-survives-freefall-from-space/tabid/1160/articleID/272703/Default.aspx

I don't know if the video clip will be watchable outside New Zealand (possibly not) but there is an article there.

That video is the official feed off youtube as used on the redbull site. Anybody can watch it ;)

[thatguruguy]

The best thing said all day had to be when Kittinger said, "I couldn't have done it better myself," considering Kittinger is the one guy on the planet who could say that with a straight face.

[Lightstar]

I think from now on, the only carbonated beverage I will enjoy is Red Bull.

Is that really how you decide what to ingest?

[kow777]

Is that really how you decide what to ingest?
No. Not at all.

[sffvba[e0rt]

Last night was so much fun and so epic... the wife and I were on the edges of our seats. Then he started spinning I was "oh <sensor>"...

Then the internet broke afterwards, epic tribute to awesome.


404

[oldos2er]

So the unofficial speed Felix reached is Mach 1.24, which is amazing to me.

Oh, and did anyone else notice that yesterday was the anniversary of another guy who broke Mach 1?

[mips]

Oh, and did anyone else notice that yesterday was the anniversary of another guy who broke Mach 1?

Yeah 65 years ago to the day Chuck Yeager did it in a plane. Wonder if he was watching Felix.

[rg4w]

Yeah 65 years ago to the day Chuck Yeager did it in a plane. Wonder if he was watching Felix.
Apparently not: he was reliving his moment breacking mach 1 again 65 years later in Mojave yesterday - at 89 years old:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/15/us/nevada-yeager-anniversary-flight/index.html

[lovinglinux]

Felix got another record...YouTube livestream viewers.

http://allthingsd.com/20121014/felix-baumgartners-crazy-space-parachute-jump-is-live-web-videos-biggest-event-ever/


The previous record was established during London's Olympics and was just 500,000 viewers.

[forrestcupp]

So the unofficial speed Felix reached is Mach 1.24, which is amazing to me.

Yeah, I was kind of wondering about that. I didn't think terminal velocity is faster than the speed of sound.

[thatguruguy]

Yeah, I was kind of wondering about that. I didn't think terminal velocity is faster than the speed of sound.

It's not. He actually slowed down to terminal velocity once he reached the atmosphere. Terminal velocity for a skydiver has been computed between 53 and 76 m/s (http://hypertextbook.com/facts/JianHuang.shtml), while the speed of sound is 340.29 m/s.

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday about the whole thing. She was curious about how the parachute could have held him when he was falling so fast. I pointed out that as he fell into the denser atmosphere he slowed down due to drag, so that his speed when he actually deployed his chute was roughly the same as any other sky diver jumping out of a plane.

[forrestcupp]

It's not. He actually slowed down to terminal velocity once he reached the atmosphere. Terminal velocity for a skydiver has been computed between 53 and 76 m/s (http://hypertextbook.com/facts/JianHuang.shtml), while the speed of sound is 340.29 m/s.

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday about the whole thing. She was curious about how the parachute could have held him when he was falling so fast. I pointed out that as he fell into the denser atmosphere he slowed down due to drag, so that his speed when he actually deployed his chute was roughly the same as any other sky diver jumping out of a plane.
So he broke the sound barrier before he entered denser atmosphere?

[oldos2er]

So he broke the sound barrier before he entered denser atmosphere?

Yeah, I think that's the biggest reason he jumped from the height that he did.

[mips]

So he broke the sound barrier before he entered denser atmosphere?

Yes, no way of doing it in denser air.