Free Falling
from the that's-quite-a-drop dept
We’ve had a few stories about individuals trying to launch themselves into space. Now, here’s a story about someone trying to go the other way. In September, some guy is planning to take a balloon up to the edge of space (131,200 feet), and then jump back to earth. He expects to break the sound barrier, though there are some questions as to whether or not he’ll be conscious when that happens. The trip has been carefully planned, so this isn’t just some random amateur sky diver, but it still sounds a bit on the insane side of things. Yet another one to go into the pre-files for the Darwin Awards.
Comments on “Free Falling”
Doh!
I was planning on opening a business for that! Idea is simple: send people up to 100,000 feet, push them over the edge… recover balloon, person, and equipment. How to make money: insurance… charge them a large insurance rate, take a policy out on them, and collect when one of them dies 😉
Actually Wired got this wrong.
A lot of people are reporting this to be the first person to break the sound barrier and stuff, but actually it was an American, Joe Kittinger who holds this honor.
He worked on Project Excelsior for the Air Force.
Re: Actually Wired got this wrong.
Actually Wired mentions Kittinger and notes there’s some question as to whether he actually exceeded Mach 1.