Felix the not so Cosmic Jumper

There is this guy, Felix, from Austria, 43 years old, who wants to jump half way from space. I am impressed by his bravery. I am also impressed that the news media wants to make the guys attempt more then what it is, because by itself it’s pretty amazing. He wants to take a helium balloon 120, 000 feet up into the stratosphere than jump. Every article I seem to fine suggests he is jumping from space.

Space starts at 380,000 miles up.

The picture is worth checking out. Trust me click on the link and tell me if you could jump or not.

If he jumps that is cool as fuck.

His main intention though is to break the sound barrier without use of a vehicle. So my thinking gets hairy from here.

Now I always assumed that an object in motion will stay in motion until reacting with a force of equal of greater value.

Or some such thing.

My last physics class was prior to 1995 and Wikipedia was just a bit helpful, lots of equations I don’t understand, so bear with me.

Before I saw the picture, In my mind he sat on the edge of a balloon, of course in a wicker basket, will wave goodbye and jump off.

Now being the effects of gravity on his body will not affect terminal velocity in the thin air of the high atmosphere the fastest he can hope to achieve will be a modest 620 miles per hour. I am being sarcastic that will be an amazing achievement, but he will not break the sound barrier.

Even if he jumps at twice the distance the closer he gets to earth the friction in the air would slow him down and potentially burst him into flame. His body moving straight down at 120,000 will never go any faster than 620 MPH and he needs to get to 768 miles per hour needed to break the sound barrier, unless he is given a push or has some sort of accelerant that will push him down terminal velocity will stop his attempt when he nears earth.

He is being sponsored by Red Bull, and all this makes sense being Red Bull gives you wings.

It is the Red Bull wings that they are counting on.

Believe me I am not trying to take anything away from the guy. I have never jumped out of anything higher than a helicopter with a rope, a rope I tied around my own waist, the end of which was gripped by another soldier pretending to be paying attention at the bottom on the ground probably thinking he would be jumping our soon himself. At least I was pretending to paying attention. The guy standing next to me almost lost his soldier who fell more than half way down before one of the Air assault cadres caught the rope and pulled it taut and saved him.

Back to Felix.

His jump was suspended because of high winds.

When the wind subsides and he makes his jump it will be the highest free fall followed by a safe landing by a person not connected to or inside a device of some kind has made to date.

Good for him, but none the less, unless Red Bull does give him some wings he will get close to the sound barrier, but will not exceed it.

Still though what a thrill, what a triumph of human imagination and Ingenuity. Go Felix!