4 ms·

Could someone explain to me whether this is a marketing stunt and nothing more or whether there is some substance behind this? Put another way: Will any scienti

by arrrg 14y ago

Could someone explain to me whether this is a marketing stunt and nothing more or whether there is some substance behind this? Put another way: Will any scientists or engineers (at least potentially) learn something interesting from this? It's cool no matter what, but it would be even cooler if there were some substance behind it.

zer 14y ago
There's this page on their website that should help you answer your question: http://www.redbullstratos.com/science/scientific-values/ http://www.redbullstratos.com/science/scientific-values/
brown9-2 14y ago
This article argues yes, there is more than marketing: http://www.wired.com/playbook/2012/10/felix-baumgartner-stratos/ http://www.wired.com/playbook/2012/10/felix-baumgartner-stra...
kloncks 14y ago
Besides proving our thoughts on what happens to the human body going through the speed of sound, there's an aspect of safety as well. If successful jumping at 120,000 feet, that means that NASA could deploy these same space suits as an exit plan for astronauts in an emergency.
- anonymfus 14y ago
  >that means that NASA could deploy these same space suits as an exit plan for astronauts in an emergency. What? For exit plan you need a way to slowdown astronaut from orbit first.
  - sudhirj 14y ago
    That might not be necessary... won't atmosphere provide enough lateral braking too? Either way, that's easier to do and requires far lesser equipment and prep than a re-entry capsule.
    - zerohp 14y ago
      The lateral braking provided by the atmosphere causes objects to burn up.
      - Evbn 14y ago
        Just cover the suits in ceramic tile.
        intended 14y ago
        I don't know if you are joking or not (I'm guessing you are), but I'll take a bite at this. Those ceramic tiles have to be placed in the right alignments to dissipate heat. So we are now talking about a rigid 'suit'. So for the rigid structure we'll need reinforcements and ways to move and handle stress and structural load at high velocities - we don't want that transmitted into the human body. (We've tested supersonic velocities, but not re-entry) The parachute will also have to expand in size to handle the extra weight. Going down this line I we soon get to a point where we may as well call the whole thing a pod and be done with it. All of it pretty much hinges on ceramic tiles needing to be oriented and then added structural weight.
  - lloyddobbler 14y ago
    I don't think he was saying 'from orbit.' He was saying in an emergency. Yes, the heat from re-entry is caused by the slowing of the spacecraft's relative speed from the incredibly fast speeds of orbit, as gravity gains hold of it and pulls it even faster. If someone exited a spacecraft in space, with zero drag, and headed towards earth, they would be moving at faster than their terminal velocity and would likely burn up. But if someone had an issue in a sub-orbital flight - or on takeoff for a space mission - bailing out could be a viable option. (Interestingly, this is why Col. Kittinger made the jumps he made with Project Excelsior in 1960 - to test whether an astronaut with no skydiving experience in the upcoming Mercury space program could successfully escape their spacecraft in the event of an emergency during the ascent.)
    - Evbn 14y ago
      For everything we do to astronauts, why not give them some skydiving experience?
- markmm 14y ago
  Yes if they can slow down the aircraft so it's floating in the air, and if the can do that they wouldn't need to revert to parachuting out. So yes its a publicity stunt and waste of helium (which is in short supply). Im sure he shouted "It gives you wings!" as he jumped.
- markmm 14y ago
  Yes if they can slow down the aircraft so it's floating in the air, and if the can do that they wouldn't need to revert to parachuting out. So yes its a publicity stunt and waste of helium (which is in short supply). Im sure he shouted "It gives you wings!" as he jumped.
icegreentea 14y ago
Apparently there are some innovations in pressure suit design going on here. This will be the first time we have a supersonic skydive. This jump would be useful in verifying their models. Use cases of supersonic sky dives... pretty much limited to space launch aborts.
- dotBen 14y ago
  Use cases of supersonic sky dives... pretty much limited to space launch aborts. There's also a lot of military applications. Most of the previous records were set by Joe Kittinger, Felix's flight communicator, in 60's as part of military research. As an aside, we don't actually know if this truly is the first time this has been done as there's plenty of reason why the US (or even Russia perhaps) could have already done this in secret.
melling 14y ago
50 years ago today humans went faster than the speed of sound for the very first time. Now we're slightly jaded where we think there's nothing to learn by having a human fall faster than the speed of sound in a suit?
- rhizome 14y ago
  65 years.
BasDirks 14y ago
http://www.redbullstratos.com/science/scientific-values/ http://www.redbullstratos.com/science/scientific-values/ It is a pretty nice site, click around a bit.
adastra 14y ago
If everything goes according to plan (I know, that's a big if), then Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and others like John Carmack's space company will be doing literally thousands of suborbital flights in the next 5 years or so. Not just tourist flights, but tons of science missions as well. Taking a step towards someone being able bail from those kind of flights is definitely useful. Very unlikely that this would be used for orbital launch anytime soon, it's way safer to abort an orbital launch in the capsule than to try and eject. The military has also looked at using suborbital rockets to transport special forces hundreds of miles in a few minutes, then deploy them high over a hotspot quickly. So it could conceivably be useful for those purposes as well. (To be clear, these are just forward-looking conceptual studies. I'm not saying the military has these vehicles ready to go or anything like that). Lastly, these guys are innovating on spacesuits design, which has been badly needed. Only a handful of spacesuit designs have ever been built and actually used in practice, and they were built by government entities. We're talking the slowest, most ponderous development cycles imaginable. NASA is still essentially using the same spacesuits on the space station that they first used with the shuttle in the early 1980's. Think about how many gains we've made in materials since then. The more suits we can build, test in the wild, and iterate on the better.

by arrrg 14y ago

zer 14y ago

There's this page on their website that should help you answer your question: http://www.redbullstratos.com/science/scientific-values/ http://www.redbullstratos.com/science/scientific-values/

brown9-2 14y ago

This article argues yes, there is more than marketing: http://www.wired.com/playbook/2012/10/felix-baumgartner-stratos/ http://www.wired.com/playbook/2012/10/felix-baumgartner-stra...

kloncks 14y ago

Besides proving our thoughts on what happens to the human body going through the speed of sound, there's an aspect of safety as well. If successful jumping at 120,000 feet, that means that NASA could deploy these same space suits as an exit plan for astronauts in an emergency.

anonymfus 14y ago
>that means that NASA could deploy these same space suits as an exit plan for astronauts in an emergency. What? For exit plan you need a way to slowdown astronaut from orbit first.
- sudhirj 14y ago
  That might not be necessary... won't atmosphere provide enough lateral braking too? Either way, that's easier to do and requires far lesser equipment and prep than a re-entry capsule.
  - zerohp 14y ago
    The lateral braking provided by the atmosphere causes objects to burn up.
    - Evbn 14y ago
      Just cover the suits in ceramic tile.
      - intended 14y ago
        I don't know if you are joking or not (I'm guessing you are), but I'll take a bite at this. Those ceramic tiles have to be placed in the right alignments to dissipate heat. So we are now talking about a rigid 'suit'. So for the rigid structure we'll need reinforcements and ways to move and handle stress and structural load at high velocities - we don't want that transmitted into the human body. (We've tested supersonic velocities, but not re-entry) The parachute will also have to expand in size to handle the extra weight. Going down this line I we soon get to a point where we may as well call the whole thing a pod and be done with it. All of it pretty much hinges on ceramic tiles needing to be oriented and then added structural weight.
- lloyddobbler 14y ago
  I don't think he was saying 'from orbit.' He was saying in an emergency. Yes, the heat from re-entry is caused by the slowing of the spacecraft's relative speed from the incredibly fast speeds of orbit, as gravity gains hold of it and pulls it even faster. If someone exited a spacecraft in space, with zero drag, and headed towards earth, they would be moving at faster than their terminal velocity and would likely burn up. But if someone had an issue in a sub-orbital flight - or on takeoff for a space mission - bailing out could be a viable option. (Interestingly, this is why Col. Kittinger made the jumps he made with Project Excelsior in 1960 - to test whether an astronaut with no skydiving experience in the upcoming Mercury space program could successfully escape their spacecraft in the event of an emergency during the ascent.)
  - Evbn 14y ago
    For everything we do to astronauts, why not give them some skydiving experience?
markmm 14y ago
Yes if they can slow down the aircraft so it's floating in the air, and if the can do that they wouldn't need to revert to parachuting out. So yes its a publicity stunt and waste of helium (which is in short supply). Im sure he shouted "It gives you wings!" as he jumped.
markmm 14y ago
Yes if they can slow down the aircraft so it's floating in the air, and if the can do that they wouldn't need to revert to parachuting out. So yes its a publicity stunt and waste of helium (which is in short supply). Im sure he shouted "It gives you wings!" as he jumped.

icegreentea 14y ago

Apparently there are some innovations in pressure suit design going on here. This will be the first time we have a supersonic skydive. This jump would be useful in verifying their models. Use cases of supersonic sky dives... pretty much limited to space launch aborts.

dotBen 14y ago
Use cases of supersonic sky dives... pretty much limited to space launch aborts. There's also a lot of military applications. Most of the previous records were set by Joe Kittinger, Felix's flight communicator, in 60's as part of military research. As an aside, we don't actually know if this truly is the first time this has been done as there's plenty of reason why the US (or even Russia perhaps) could have already done this in secret.

melling 14y ago

50 years ago today humans went faster than the speed of sound for the very first time. Now we're slightly jaded where we think there's nothing to learn by having a human fall faster than the speed of sound in a suit?

rhizome 14y ago
65 years.

BasDirks 14y ago

http://www.redbullstratos.com/science/scientific-values/ http://www.redbullstratos.com/science/scientific-values/ It is a pretty nice site, click around a bit.

adastra 14y ago

If everything goes according to plan (I know, that's a big if), then Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and others like John Carmack's space company will be doing literally thousands of suborbital flights in the next 5 years or so. Not just tourist flights, but tons of science missions as well. Taking a step towards someone being able bail from those kind of flights is definitely useful. Very unlikely that this would be used for orbital launch anytime soon, it's way safer to abort an orbital launch in the capsule than to try and eject. The military has also looked at using suborbital rockets to transport special forces hundreds of miles in a few minutes, then deploy them high over a hotspot quickly. So it could conceivably be useful for those purposes as well. (To be clear, these are just forward-looking conceptual studies. I'm not saying the military has these vehicles ready to go or anything like that). Lastly, these guys are innovating on spacesuits design, which has been badly needed. Only a handful of spacesuit designs have ever been built and actually used in practice, and they were built by government entities. We're talking the slowest, most ponderous development cycles imaginable. NASA is still essentially using the same spacesuits on the space station that they first used with the shuttle in the early 1980's. Think about how many gains we've made in materials since then. The more suits we can build, test in the wild, and iterate on the better.