Mach 1.24 in nothing but a pressure suit!!! WOW!
Officials say that Felix Baumgartner has become the first skydiver to break the speed of sound.
At a news conference, Brian Utley of the International Federation of Sports Aviation said Baumgartner reached a maximum speed of 833.9 mph during his jump Sunday over the New Mexico desert.
That amounts to Mach 1.24, which is faster than the speed of sound. No one has ever reached that speed wearing only a high-tech suit.
I found this video of one of his test dives.
Another video from a earlier jump than above.
I wonder what the sound barrier feels like in nothing but a pressure suit….crazy!
What they alway omit is that the speed of sound is not all that fast at 120k feet.
It would actually be surprising if he didn’t break the sound “barrier” on the way down.
That’s just the cynic talking, the rest of me is “YOU GO!” A childlike sense of wonder and glee accompanies the news. It’s also amusing watching this guy have most of the same problems on the way down that the first guy to do it did, after talking to him before this attempt!
In the ’80s there was a science-fiction role-playing game named “Traveller”. The publisher had something like a magazine, and in one issue had an article on a futuristic sport in which, with little more than a vacuum suit and a block of foam, people sky-dived from orbit.
So, what’s the next SF idea to become reality?