Mr. Baumgartner skilled skydiver
Even the bravest adrenaline seeker will start to sweat just thinking about skydiving. Even though the typical skydive is made from a height of about 10,000 feet, the record-breaking leap from ten years ago dwarfs this one. Felix Baumgartner, a daredevil who is now 53, leaped from the edge of space on this day in 2012 with nothing but a pressure suit, a parachute, and steely nerves.
Before releasing his parachute and safely gliding down to land in New Mexico, he free-dropped to Earth for more than four minutes, breaking the sound barrier and reaching astonishing speeds of 843.6 mph.
MailOnline chatted with Mr. Baumgartner to commemorate the tenth anniversary of his jump. He shared his thoughts about the horrific stunt and why he would never try it again. Felix Baumgartner, a daredevil who is now 53, leaped from the edge of space on this day in 2012. He was only equipped with a pressure suit, a parachute, and steel nerves.
Felix Baumgartner’s leap broke records. Millions of viewers tuned in anxiously to watch Mr.’s record-breaking jump from the edge of space on October 14, 2012, which was shown live on 77 TV networks and online. Mr. Baumgartner entered the Red Bull Stratos capsule at 9:28 MDT while wearing a pressurized suit. He then flew to the edge of space while being guided by a helium balloon.
Mr. Baumgartner went outside the capsule when it ascended to a height of 127,852.4 feet (38,969.4 meters). He experienced a 4-minute, 30-second freefall back to Earth, reaching a staggering speed of 843.6 mph (357.6 kph). He drew his chute and parachuted to the ground when he reached 8,421.3ft (2,566.8 meters) above sea level. Before he set his sights on space, Mr. Baumgartner was a skilled skydiver who had made many jumps. His hero was Captain Joe Kittinger, a former fighter pilot who in 1960 leaped to Earth from 102,800 feet.
He told MailOnline that as a skydiver, you always want to test the limits. “This is what I call a true pioneer,” said Joe on what he accomplished in the 1960s after just 33 skydives. ‘ Furthermore, I had completed a few thousand skydives. “What else can I do?” you perpetually ask. move quicker? Climb higher? It is constantly in the air.
In order to jump from space, Mr. Baumgartner contacted Red Bull again, who had previously cooperated with him on base jumps. We undertook the effort of attempting to identify the proper people “because of all the trust I’d developed with Red Bull with base jumps,” the man said. Among them was Joe Kittinger, who volunteered to provide a hand and served as his inspiration.
When I first met Joe, he made it very clear that while he was intrigued, he would only support me if I took the relationship seriously. You cannot suddenly become a hero. The proper procedure must be followed. It wasn’t always easy sailing throughout the two years of intense planning and testing that followed.
Mr. Baumgartner would exit the capsule once he reached a height of 114,829ft (35,000 meters), freefall for four minutes, then deploy his parachute and descend to the earth. It took us some time to persuade individuals to join us because many people didn’t believe in us, according to Mr. Baumgartner. We had to exercise a lot of patience.
The strategy was straightforward: after boarding the Red Bull Stratos spacecraft and donning a pressurized suit, Mr. Baumgartner would soar toward the edge of space while being guided by a helium balloon. Mr. Baumgartner would open the capsule hatch when he reached a height of 114,829ft (35,000 meters), jump out, and then freefall for four minutes before opening his parachute and gliding to the ground.
Even though the entire mission would be completed in less than three hours, Mr. Baumgartner was aware of a number of potential problems. “Up there, the climate is really hostile.” He said that if the suit malfunctions, your blood will begin to boil and you would pass away in 15 seconds. If the parachute fails or you flat spin, all of your blood will be forced into your skull. If it occurs, your blood can only escape through your eyeballs at a particular RPM.
His first concern was whether or not he had achieved his primary objective of breaking the sound barrier despite coming out of the stunt unscathed. Mr. Baumgartner was briefed by a doctor before being given the “excellent news” that, in the event of a catastrophe, “it would only take 15 seconds to die.” The launch was supposed to happen on October 9, 2012, but it was canceled because of bad weather. The first test was canceled, and there was only one spare balloon, according to Mr. Baumgartner. We would have needed to wait an additional six months to try again if the second test had been unsuccessful.
Thankfully, Mr. Baumgartner awoke to better weather on October 14 and was upbeat about the subsequent launch attempt. He explained, “You wake up at two in the morning and go outside to mission control, do the weather brief and medical tests.” They dressed me in a pressure suit before putting me into the capsule. It was a huge relief when the balloon took off since it meant we were moving. Several thoughts crossed Mr. Baumgartner’s mind during the 90-minute ascension.
MailOnline chatted with Mr. Baumgartner to commemorate the tenth anniversary of his jump. He shared his thoughts of the horrific stunt and why he would never try it again.
Thank goodness, the data showed that Mr. Baumgartner not only exceeded the speed of sound, but also reached Mach 1.25, or 1.25 times the speed of sound. Will we jump from a 35,000-meter altitude? even try to open the door? Could it be frozen shut? She described. But when the capsule reached 38,969.3 meters (127,852 feet) and the hatch opened without a hitch, he understood there was only one route down and his concerns were allayed.
Even though you might expect Mr. Baumgartner to feel anxious at this moment, he indicated that he really felt oddly at rest. “When I looked up, the sky was dark,” he remarked. “There was no sound at all. Your breathing is all that can be heard. It had very peaceful. The sky was pitch-black when I looked up,’ he reported.
“It was dead quiet.” It’s just you breathing, that’s all. Very little noise was heard. Mr. Baumgartner had already cut off his oxygen supply from the spacecraft and was now relying on an oxygen canister, which would only last for 15 minutes, so as much as he wanted to savor that moment, he didn’t have much time. He gave the camera on the spacecraft a bow before advancing and jumping. In under 50 seconds, Mr. Baumgartner went from 0 to 890 mph, shattering the sound barrier, as he descended back to Earth.
It’s horrifying to watch the clip of his four-minute, 19-second plummet, yet the man said he didn’t even feel it. Mr. Baumgartner claims he has no plans to repeat the act ten years after the jump and is instead concentrating on his career as an acrobatic helicopter pilot. You aren’t aware of it. Nothing is moving quickly enough to give you a sense of speed. Because it is under pressure, the suit is not flapping. Therefore, there is no indication of your speed,’ he added.
Mr. Baumgartner released his parachute and successfully descended to the earth in New Mexico at a height of 1,500 meters (4,921 feet). Even though he came out of the stunt unhurt, his biggest concern was if he had succeeded in his main objective of breaking the sound barrier.
While he was relieved that everything had gone well, he added, “I still wasn’t sure if I had broken the sound barrier.” “I didn’t know if I had done it until 10 minutes after downloading my info.” The statistics, thankfully, showed that Mr. Baumgartner had not only surpassed the speed of sound but also reached Mach 1.25, which is 1.25 times the speed of sound. That was a huge relief, he continued.
Ten years after the jump, Mr. Baumgartner said he doesn’t have any plans to repeat the stunt and is instead concentrating on his career as an acrobatic helicopter pilot. I would never do it again, of course! In freefall, we were attempting to break the sound barrier,’ he claimed. It would still be perilous if we tried it again. It doesn’t guarantee that anything will work again just because it did previously. I’ll hand it over to the following generation.
‘Space Jump: How Red Bull Stratos Captured the World’s Attention,’ a brand-new documentary with never-before-seen footage and viewpoints, debuts on Red Bull TV on October 14.
How Branson, Musk, and Bezos are vying for galactic supremacy in “The Billionaire Space Race”
Jeff Bezos, Sir Richard Branson, and Elon Musk, collectively known as the “NewSpace” set, claim that the first moon landing in 1969, when the US defeated the Soviet Union in the space race, was their inspiration. It goes without saying how much it would mean to each of them to win the “new space race.” Bezos, the creator of Amazon, had planned to launch on the New Shepard spacecraft of his business Blue Origin on July 20. However, Branson outran him and became the first of the three to travel into space.
Nine days before Bezos, on July 11, the British billionaire, who is now known as Virgin Galactic Astronaut 001, launched into space on a suborbital test flight. On July 20, Bezos, his younger brother Mark, Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old physics student whose father bought his ticket, and intrepid female astronaut Wally Funk, 82, took a trip into space. Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla, has stated that he wants to travel to space and even “die on Mars,” but he has not indicated when he could launch into orbit. Instead, he has booked a suborbital voyage with Virgin Galactic. With the Inspiration4 mission, which was sponsored by millionaire Jared Isaacman, SpaceX became the first of the “space tourism” companies to launch a fully civilian crew into orbit.
Elon Musk, the space-obsessed billionaire, developed the Dragon spacecraft and SpaceX rocket for his flight, which launched on September 16 for a three-day orbital journey, going higher than the International Space Station. With many launches bringing NASA equipment to the International Space Station and partnerships to send people to space by 2021, SpaceX appears to be in the lead in the larger billionaire space race.
On February 6, 2018, SpaceX launched a rocket carrying Elon Musk’s red Tesla Roadster toward the 140 million-mile orbit of Mars. Elon Musk Additionally, SpaceX has sent two teams of astronauts from NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Japanese space agency, JAXA, to the International Space Station.
To assist build its Starlink network, which is now in beta and offers fast internet to remote areas, SpaceX has started launching batches of 60 satellites into orbit. To conquer space, Branson and Virgin Galactic are using different strategies. The Virgin Galactic Unity spacecraft’s test flights have been carried out on numerous occasions with great success. The aircraft accelerated to more than 2,000 miles per hour during both of them, the first occurring in December 2018 and the most recent on May 22. (Mach 2.7).
Up to this point, more than 600 wealthy clients have reserved a $250,000 (£200,000) ticket on one of Virgin’s space flights, including actors Brad Pitt and Katy Perry. The expected final ticket price is $350,000. Elon Musk’s private rocket company SpaceX is expected to win the race to Mars, according to a previous statement by Branson.
With the Virgin Galactic spacecraft, Richard Branson Six passengers and two pilots can board SpaceShipTwo at once. The same two wide windows, one overhead and one on either side of each passenger’s seat, are provided. The astronauts have the maximum amount of area to float in zero gravity thanks to the spaceship’s 60-foot length and 90-inch cabin diameter. Before the rocket engine starts, it ascends to a height of 50,000 feet. When SpaceShipTwo reaches a distance of 50 miles, it disengages from its carrier vessel, White Knight II.
When travelers cross the Karman line, the edge of the atmosphere, they are referred to as “astronauts.” After that, the spacecraft will go suborbitally, experiencing weightlessness for around six minutes. The entire flight will take about 1.5 hours. Bezos revealed in April 2017 that he uses about $1 billion (£720 million) of Amazon stock each year to fund Blue Origin.
A pressurized crew capsule sits atop a reusable “New Shepard” booster rocket in the system. Just over the legal limit for space, the capsule soared 65 miles (104 kilometers) at its highest point before landing vertically seven minutes after takeoff. The next-generation heavy-lift rocket, New Glenn, being developed by Blue Origin, will take on SpaceX’s Falcon 9.
