If you haven’t heard the Red Bull Stratos team is working on something quite amazing, they are pushing the limits of todays technology by making it possible for Felix Baumgartner to survive a free fall from a height of 120,000 ft above the Earth’s surface.
Felix is carried to these amazing heights inside a capsule which is attached to a high altitude ballon that when filled with helium is 550 ft tall. The pressurized capsule will protect felix from sub zero temperatures and provide much needed oxygen as the air begins to become very thin to virtually nonexistent at these heights.
Felix Baumgartner has already survived two earlier test flights, one at a height just over 70,000ft and a second jump from over 90,000ft. The third and final flight will have Felix jumping from a height of 120,000ft, which has never been done before. Felix could be the first human being to reach supersonic speeds without a vehicle as he will be falling at close to 700 mph.
Joseph Kittinger was the last person to perform a jump like this on August 16, 1960 from a record breaking height of 102,800 ft. The project that had Joseph jumping from these heights was named project Excelsior and was comprised of three jumps. The first jump almost killed Kittinger as his equipment failed which rendered him unconscious during free fall and he began to spin rapidly allowing him experience up to 22 times the force of gravity, which was also record breaking. If it wasn’t for the automated parachute system he was equipped with, he would most likely not survived.
The purpose of all of this is to collect scientific data and test a new generation of space suit technology and even though this jump will be record breaking, the team has mentioned that the overall goal is mainly focused on the data.
Complete details of the mission can be found here.
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