4 ms·

In addition to the boiling spit thing, he was rammed at Mach 1 into -57C air at 15km altitude, without wearing some fancy astronaut suit, coming out of a space

In addition to the boiling spit thing, he was rammed at Mach 1 into -57C air at 15km altitude, without wearing some fancy astronaut suit, coming out of a space vehicle disintegrating around him. Then he regained consciousness en route down to Earth and unbuckled the seat. How was the whole ordeal survivable - I can't even begin to imagine. This is the real man of steel.

jcampbell1 12y ago
Interestingly, low altitude supersonic ejection is worse than high altitude. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HecyxhXDepU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HecyxhXDepU Water boiling on the tongue sounds less bad than having your arms and legs blown out of socket.
- Florin_Andrei 12y ago
  Fluids are not so fluid - if encountered suddenly at high enough speed. As anyone who did a belly flop from a high place can testify.
- davyjones 12y ago
  Actually, the water boiling is a sign that probably Nitrogen is boiling off your blood too. Don't want that to happen.
3327 12y ago
He is not a man of steel. Just his nut sack. And probably depleted uranium is more likely. Years of experience and training. Thats why he was in that seat in the first place.
jsmthrowaway 12y ago
Bloomberg flubbed that bit. The NASA subject felt the boiling, not the pilot. The next section's heading was a paragraph early and confused me, too.
pwnna 12y ago
Just did some rough calculations on a different thread about the conditions he would have experienced here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8603968 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8603968 But yeah, he's gotta be the luckiest person alive right now, being the only one surviving a space launch related accident while airborne.
- lmm 12y ago
  Yeager famously survived an accident with a modified F-104 that was in some ways quite similar to the SpaceX craft (i.e. a plane with a rocket that can fly an arc up out of the atmosphere). Quite a few of these rocket-plane flights were considered spaceflight at the time, though they don't meet the modern (100km) definition.
  - yincrash 12y ago
    To clarify, it was a Virgin Galactic craft, not SpaceX.

jcampbell1 12y ago

Interestingly, low altitude supersonic ejection is worse than high altitude. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HecyxhXDepU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HecyxhXDepU Water boiling on the tongue sounds less bad than having your arms and legs blown out of socket.

Florin_Andrei 12y ago
Fluids are not so fluid - if encountered suddenly at high enough speed. As anyone who did a belly flop from a high place can testify.
davyjones 12y ago
Actually, the water boiling is a sign that probably Nitrogen is boiling off your blood too. Don't want that to happen.

3327 12y ago

He is not a man of steel. Just his nut sack. And probably depleted uranium is more likely. Years of experience and training. Thats why he was in that seat in the first place.

jsmthrowaway 12y ago

Bloomberg flubbed that bit. The NASA subject felt the boiling, not the pilot. The next section's heading was a paragraph early and confused me, too.

pwnna 12y ago

Just did some rough calculations on a different thread about the conditions he would have experienced here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8603968 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8603968 But yeah, he's gotta be the luckiest person alive right now, being the only one surviving a space launch related accident while airborne.

lmm 12y ago
Yeager famously survived an accident with a modified F-104 that was in some ways quite similar to the SpaceX craft (i.e. a plane with a rocket that can fly an arc up out of the atmosphere). Quite a few of these rocket-plane flights were considered spaceflight at the time, though they don't meet the modern (100km) definition.
- yincrash 12y ago
  To clarify, it was a Virgin Galactic craft, not SpaceX.