
Supersonic free fall from 120,000 feet live at 8:30AM EST - flipstewart
http://www.redbullstratos.com/live/
======
chrisboesing
Maybe a little off topic:

Red Bull's marketing is impeccable. They started out with all the actionsport
athletes and moved upstream to more mainstream, and I guess, more expensive
sports (two Formula 1 teams, more soccer teams than I can count), while still
doing these crazy things. From Parcours in Santorini, to Air Races all over
the world. Seems like every crazy sporting event is sponsored by Red Bull.

I think these have allowed them to be still seen as "hip" and not just selling
sugar water like Coca Cola.

~~~
franze
and like all good things, it started by accident. (i got this story from one
of their marketing managers) once upon a time someone at the formula 1 won a
race. and the masterchief (or however the bosses of the racing teams are
called) drank a red bull instead of champagne during the victory interview.

next day red bull was sold out in austria (which was their main market at that
time)

they just took it from there.

~~~
Piskvorrr
"It was an accident," quoth their marketing manager. Yeah, riiiiiiiiight.

~~~
wtvanhest
It’s more likely that a marketing manager would take personal credit for an
accident (i.e. boosting their resume) than to attribute a brilliant marketing
to an accident.

~~~
Piskvorrr
You are neglecting one issue: advertising and lawsuits. "Oh look, we have
smuggled our product into the tightest-controlled advertising event, and we
did it on purpose; sure, we'll happily pay you the $$$ for this priceless
publicity boost." vs "Oh, it was an accident, there's no way we'll pay you
anything."

I'm completely certain that the F1 organizers would sue the heck out of Red
Bull for their unauthorized ad, if they only could prove RB did it on purpose
(and RB isn't so foolish to provide them with ammunition).

~~~
wtvanhest
What exactly do you think F1 would sue Red Bull for?

Without RB having a contract of some type with F1, it is unlikely there is any
way for them to sue RB. It may be possible for F1 to sue the driver, but at
this point that would seem ridiculous since RB is now a huge F1 sponsor.

Accidents also don't eliminate lawsuits. Even if there was a way for F1 to sue
RB, they should still be able to sue them for accidents. For example, if RB
had a contract with F1 which stipulated when and how RB could be shown, and RB
showed their product at a different time by accident F1 could still sue them.

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mmaunder
Nitpick re "edge of space": Low earth orbit starts at around 160 km and orbits
decay rapidly below 200 km. This is 36 km altitude. But what I think most
people miss is that to "be in space" the way most people think about space
you'll need to enter orbit which means that once you get up to 160+ km
altitude you need to go sideways at roughly 24 times the speed of sound - and
then you're in orbit. Then when you're all done having your fun you need to
take all that orbital energy and do something with it. The best idea so far is
to use it to burn up a heat shield. This business of going vertical a little
higher than jets and a lot lower than satellites is a little pretentious. But
it's fun and it's Red Bull so who cares!!

~~~
piaskal
While there isn't anything special marking the edge of space, the generally
accepted definition is 100km <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_of_space>

~~~
pbhjpbhj
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_sovereignty>

Makes me interested to see what the treaties say as I'd be surprised it no one
thought to limit the control of countries to allow satellites to pass without
permission or allow space vehicles in general.

Though as you point out there is the Karman line convention.

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draven
There are precedents, see <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kittinger> for
other crazy skydives

~~~
atlbeer
He's working on the project as a consultant

"The record is currently held by Col. Joe Kittinger, who in 1960 jumped from
102,800 feet as part of a U.S. Air Force mission. On this attempt, 52 years
later, Kittinger is a consultant and mentor.

He has also been giving Baumgartner advice on what to expect. For example, he
described what it feels like to fall through space when there is so little
air: "There's no way you can tell how fast you're going, because there's no
visual cues."

But Kittinger rejects any suggestion that he is jealous that Baumgartner is
poised to beat his record.

"Oh no. I'm delighted," he told CNN recently. "He's advancing science, and
he'll do a great job."

[http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/09/us/skydiver-record-
attempt/ind...](http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/09/us/skydiver-record-
attempt/index.html?hpt=hp_t1)

~~~
mseebach2
You have to be cut from a particular bitter length of cloth to be jealous over
_only_ keeping your world record for 52 years.

~~~
jksmith
No kidding. Breaking Kittinger's record is a tribute to Kittinger.

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andyv88
The tech to shoot and transmit this whole event live is almost as incredible
as the event itself

[http://www.redbullstratos.com/technology/cameras-
communicati...](http://www.redbullstratos.com/technology/cameras-
communications/)

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nodesocket
Just aborted due to high winds. They are going to retry tomorrow.

~~~
jayp08
tomorrow also looks unlikely...no confirmation yet about tomorrow's jump as of
now.

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ColinWright
Is the web site overwhelmed? I'm getting "Loading Javascript" messages, but
nothing is happening.

    
    
        We're just trying to load the data for you. If you
        don't have JavaScript enabled in your browser for
        this site, please switch it on and refresh the page
        in order to view the Live Jump experience.
    

It would be nice to know if it's working for other people.

 _Added in edit: OK - on weather hold - due off an hour from now._

~~~
nicholassmith
The YouTube live view seems like it's struggling to cope with the demand,
keeps stalling or failing to load for me.

~~~
keltex
<http://youtube.com/embed/vkJ5ItzE>

~~~
fredoliveira
I believe you're missing a few chars in the hash. Should be
<http://youtube.com/embed/vkJ5ItzEq3M>, or for the full youtube page:
<http://youtube.com/watch?v=vkJ5ItzEq3M>

------
anu_gupta
Direct link to the live YouTube stream

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=vkJ5ItzEq3M#](http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=vkJ5ItzEq3M#)!

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dantiberian
This year has been really great for awesome space events. Mars, 2 SpaceX
missions, now this. I hope this is just a taste of things to come.

~~~
flipstewart
We went to the moon, what, 40 years ago? It's about time we started living in
the space age.

------
dutchbrit
Can someone explain the physics behind this?

~~~
nicholassmith
Lots of the science was broken down over at Wired:
[http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/stratos-space-
jump...](http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/stratos-space-jump-can-you-
fall-faster-than-the-speed-of-sound/)

~~~
davidw
Another silly question might be: won't he "burn up on reentry"? Clearly, he's
falling from a different altitude than a rocket, and starting from 0, but what
are the actual numbers like?

~~~
lutusp
> Clearly, he's falling from a different altitude than a rocket, and starting
> from 0, but what are the actual numbers like?

Without an atmosphere, the result would be deterministic and trivial to
compute:

acceleration = f(t) = g

velocity = ∫ f(t) dt = g * t

position = ∫∫ f(t) dt = 1/2 g t^2

(The value of g changes slightly for this problem, in this altitude domain.)

But because of the atmosphere, the calculation of velocity as a function of
altitude is much more difficult. And it turns out that the atmospheric
pressure as a function of altitude is not trivially characterized. And at high
altitudes, it's not even constant -- it depends on temperature, the position
of the sun in the sky, even the time in the 11-year sunspot cycle.

The air resistance of a falling object is some constant k (based on the
object's size and surface roughness) times the square of the velocity times
the air pressure. But the air pressure is changing as the descent unfolds, so
such a computation ultimately relies on a numerical solution to a differential
equation.

This is why one doesn't see a trivial equation describing descent velocity for
a skydiver. I have worked out skydiver velocity profiles for constant air
pressure nearer the surface:

<http://arachnoid.com/sage/terminal_velocity.html>

But this equation, only an approximation at lower altitudes, is of no use at
all for a problem like the Baumgartner jump.

~~~
bbrizzi
The air pressure is proportional to either v or v² depending on the speed and
atmosphere.

For a friction force Fr, the terminal velocity is reached when the
acceleration becomes null:

m _g + Fr = 0

m_g - k* Vterm² = 0

k, the friction coefficient depends on different parameters:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_equation>

So in the end, the terminal velocity will depend on:

\- The guy's weight (contrary to a free-fall's acceleration which is
independent of mass)

\- The "contact surface" between the body and the atmosphere.

\- The atmosphere's density (which is lower than on Earth's surface).

The guy aims at reaching Mach 1. Note that due to the lower atmospheric
pressure at this altitude, Mach 1 is a bit smaller than it is on the Earth's
surface ( 301 m/s at 29 000 meters and -48 degrees C compared to 340 m/s at
sea level ).

Finally, the term "free fall" is not appropriate as the definition of a free
fall is "any motion of a body where its weight is the only force acting upon
it."( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_fall> ) This does not take into
account the drag which is not negligible here.

~~~
lutusp
> The air pressure is proportional to either v or v² depending on the speed
> and atmosphere.

1\. I think you mean "air resistance". Yes?

2\. If so, then no, air resistance transitions from (linear) Stokes drag at
low velocities to (aptly named) quadratic drag at higher velocities, as a
function of velocity, but not a function of air pressure. So not "either v or
v^2", but a combination of the two factors.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_(physics)>

~~~
davidw
It made my day to have my question answered by an honest-to-goodness rocket
scientist. Thank you!

I think the numbers that best sum up the situation are provided by yardie and
blaze33 though. I knew that stuff coming from space was obviously going to be
moving faster than the guy's 0 velocity, but had no idea about the order of
magnitude.

------
NelsonMinar
While we're waiting for the weather to clear, you can watch nicely edited
footage of Kittinger's 1960 record of 100,000 feet; it's at the start of the
Boards of Canada video for Dayvan Cowboy:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2zKARkpDW4>

------
toufka
And it's aborted; 'Gusty winds'.

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rjsamson
Looks like they've got a weather hold until 8am Mountain Time (10am Eastern)

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molmalo
Aborted for today, due to too much wind.

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mschonfeld
Actually, its at 9:30AM EST...

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keeptrying
Speechless ...

------
jchung
Aborted.

