Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from dot com.
Speaker 1: Hello again, everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff. My name
Speaker 1: is Chris Poulette and I'm an editor at how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Sitting across from me, as always, is
Speaker 1: senior writer Jonathan Strickland. He there, well, today, Chris, I
Speaker 1: thought we would talk about something that happened recently in
Speaker 1: the news, especially at the time that we're recording this,
Speaker 1: since it is currently a mid October ish twelve, two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve, and uh and earlier this week as of
Speaker 1: the time we're recording this, a fellow named Felix baumb
Speaker 1: Gardner did something pretty phenomenal. Yes, actually he fell nice,
Speaker 1: he fell a lot. Yeah, he fell more than any
Speaker 1: man has ever fallen before right in space. No one
Speaker 1: and hear you fall as a matter of fact, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know you said that it's been in the news.
Speaker 1: I think this is going to captivate people's attention for
Speaker 1: a long long time, because I don't know that anybody
Speaker 1: is ready to better this brand new record. And he said,
Speaker 1: and and this record was set more than you know,
Speaker 1: forty years after the last one. So uh so, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been a while. So what what we're talking about
Speaker 1: is the Red Bull Stratos jump sponsored by Red Bull.
Speaker 1: Was this crazy attempt to break some world records, and
Speaker 1: many world records were broken. Actually three for you know,
Speaker 1: the four that they were aiming for they broke. If
Speaker 1: you're curious about the one they did not break, it
Speaker 1: was for longest free fall, uh. And I think they
Speaker 1: were going by longest as in uh time. Really they
Speaker 1: were looking at the time. It's kind of interesting because
Speaker 1: according to what they were they were going by the
Speaker 1: person who had the the record for the highest jump previously,
Speaker 1: which was a uh that Air Force United States Air
Speaker 1: Force colonel named Joseph Kittinger his name pronounced Kittinger on
Speaker 1: the news report that I okay, I don't know that
Speaker 1: er um at any rate he in in Uh. He
Speaker 1: did several jumps for the Air Force to kind of
Speaker 1: test what this How how could a human survive in
Speaker 1: a high altitude jump? And one on one of those jumps,
Speaker 1: he fell for four minutes and thirty six seconds before
Speaker 1: deploying his main shoot. However, uh, he did use a
Speaker 1: drogue shoot, which is a smaller shoot not meant to
Speaker 1: uh to slow you to the safe speed, but rather
Speaker 1: to help guide your descent because well we'll get into
Speaker 1: why that's important, but he had that deployed in his jump. However, Uh,
Speaker 1: if you're really going to be a stickler, then uh
Speaker 1: two years later that was in nineteen sixty two years later,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two, the Eugene Andreev jumped from an altitude
Speaker 1: of around eighty three thousand, five twenty three ft, which
Speaker 1: is around twenty four hundred fifty seven meters uh over Russia,
Speaker 1: and um he fell for eighty thousand, three eighty feet
Speaker 1: or thousand, five hundred meters before deploying his shoot without
Speaker 1: using a drug shoot. So depending on the way you
Speaker 1: look at his is the longest free fall because there
Speaker 1: was no drug shoot deployed anyway. Uh, baum Gartner's fall
Speaker 1: did not last that long before deploying his shoot. It
Speaker 1: was four minutes twenty two seconds if I recall correctly.
Speaker 1: So he did not break that record. However, other records
Speaker 1: he definitely did break. And it was a remarkable achievement
Speaker 1: on multiple fronts. I mean, just human endurance to be
Speaker 1: able to handle that kind of uh battering about you
Speaker 1: get in a jump of that size, as well as
Speaker 1: the technical uh achievements that we made in order to
Speaker 1: make this possible. So we wanted to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about why this is such a challenging thing to
Speaker 1: take on and the kind of stuff he used to
Speaker 1: achieve it. And and of course this was a huge effort.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is not one guy going up in
Speaker 1: a plane and jumping out, uh and deploying a shoot.
Speaker 1: I mean he there was there was a huge team
Speaker 1: in place to bring this about. And of course, as
Speaker 1: Jonathan has already mentioned, this is not an effort that
Speaker 1: was backed by a government. This was completely private, um,
Speaker 1: which you know, in some respects makes things easier. Um.
Speaker 1: And yes, they didn't use any kind of spacecraft. They
Speaker 1: did have a pressure rised capsule that was lifted into
Speaker 1: place by a very very tall balloon. Yeah. Actually the
Speaker 1: balloon got less tall as it got as it gut
Speaker 1: further up in the atmosphere because of the changes in pressure.
Speaker 1: In fact, that's probably the first thing we should talk about,
Speaker 1: is the air pressure and why uh, you know, why
Speaker 1: there were so many things need to be in place
Speaker 1: in order for him to have a successful jump. Um.
Speaker 1: Air pressure changes at elevations, right, so uh, you know
Speaker 1: it makes sense. You you're figured when you think about
Speaker 1: the Earth, and you think about the atmosphere around the Earth, Well,
Speaker 1: if you're on the surface of the Earth, you've got
Speaker 1: more atmosphere above you pressing down on you than you
Speaker 1: would if you were quite a bit of the ways up.
Speaker 1: And so at sea level you have one atmosphere of pressure. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're wondering, well, what does that mean in terms
Speaker 1: of other units, that's that's just under fifteen pounds per
Speaker 1: square inch or and you're welcome Europe that I did
Speaker 1: this one point oh three kilograms per square centimeter, but
Speaker 1: one atmosphere is a much easier way of saying that.
Speaker 1: So that's at sea level, and that's the average. Okay,
Speaker 1: so even even at sea level, that number of changes somewhat,
Speaker 1: but the average is that number now at thirty five
Speaker 1: thousand feet, which is, you know, around where a lot
Speaker 1: of commercial air flights might be somewhere around in that area,
Speaker 1: which is ten thousand seven. See I did this all
Speaker 1: the way around. It's about three and a half pounds
Speaker 1: per square inch. So remember it at sea level fifteen
Speaker 1: pounds thou feet around three and a half pounds. That,
Speaker 1: by the way, is a point to five kilograms per
Speaker 1: square centimeter UH and UH or point to four atmospheres
Speaker 1: at around sixty two thousand ft or nineteen thousand meters,
Speaker 1: the pressure has reached a point where it's it's so
Speaker 1: um so much less than what we experience that we
Speaker 1: can have some pretty serious health risks. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: we're we've evolved on this planet to to be able
Speaker 1: to survive in the conditions of our environment. So you know,
Speaker 1: we're used to having this certain amount of air pressure.
Speaker 1: Beyond that we don't do so well. And if the
Speaker 1: pressure is too light, then our our blood can actually
Speaker 1: start to have gas form within it and then it'll
Speaker 1: will expand, which is called ebulism, and it is not
Speaker 1: a good thing to have happened to you. So that's
Speaker 1: why pressure is a big deal. And of course we
Speaker 1: haven't even reached the the height of the where the
Speaker 1: jump was, because the goal for this jump was to
Speaker 1: about at around a hundred and twenty thousand feet uh.
Speaker 1: In actuality, he got all the way up to around
Speaker 1: a d one hundred feet, which is thirty nine thousands,
Speaker 1: which is just over twenty four miles up or thirty
Speaker 1: nine kilometers for those of you who wanted to you know,
Speaker 1: not divide that number of meters there. Um, we took
Speaker 1: about two hours frohim to get there. But at that
Speaker 1: at that elevation, air pressure is less than one pound
Speaker 1: per square inch or less than point oh seven kilograms
Speaker 1: per square centimeter or point zero seven atmospheres, So you're
Speaker 1: talking about very little air pressure at all. And because
Speaker 1: of that, both the capsule he was in and of
Speaker 1: course the suit he was wearing needed to be pressurized
Speaker 1: so that he would not have any major health risks
Speaker 1: when he when he jumped out or just from the ascent.
Speaker 1: So the capsule was was pressurized first, and it was
Speaker 1: done that way so that he would not have to
Speaker 1: pressurize his suit, uh from the from the ground as
Speaker 1: they started to ascend. Um, by having it in the capsule,
Speaker 1: it took some of that that that power, that energy
Speaker 1: that was needed off the the actual suit, which is good.
Speaker 1: You want to preserve that as much as you can.
Speaker 1: Once they reached the float height, which is where the
Speaker 1: balloon was not gonna rise any higher and not as
Speaker 1: high as it was going to go. Uh, then that
Speaker 1: was when it was time to open up the door
Speaker 1: and start off the jump. Well that that's where they
Speaker 1: had to de pressurize the cabin and pressurize the suit.
Speaker 1: Actually pressurize the suit first, obviously very important step, but
Speaker 1: then depressurized the cabin so that they could open up
Speaker 1: the door, because you can't open that door otherwise there's
Speaker 1: too much pressure on the inside. It's just like if
Speaker 1: you're in an airplane and um, you have the emergency exit,
Speaker 1: the emergency exit. If you were at altitude, it's going
Speaker 1: to have so much tremendous amount of pressure on the
Speaker 1: inside because the airplane itself is pressurized while the outside
Speaker 1: is not. You can't open that door that you're just
Speaker 1: not physically strong enough. Same thing here. Um, once it
Speaker 1: was de pressurized, he could open up the door. His
Speaker 1: his suit had been pressurized, um, and that was what
Speaker 1: gave him that safety of at least from the environment.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many other things you have to
Speaker 1: worry about, but as far as air pressure goes, that
Speaker 1: was how they took care of that. And of course
Speaker 1: all the different parts of his suit were sealed so
Speaker 1: that there wouldn't be any leaks, like the the gloves
Speaker 1: had uh, these these rotating locks on them so that
Speaker 1: you could not have them airtight with the suit as
Speaker 1: as well as the helmet. UM. This was really important
Speaker 1: because Kitteninger had a jump where he had a hole
Speaker 1: in one of his gloves and UM apparently the the
Speaker 1: glove ended up for the pressure, it ended up sticking
Speaker 1: to his hand enough so that it wasn't a huge problem.
Speaker 1: H And he did not report this to ground control
Speaker 1: because of fear that they would cancel the jump. And
Speaker 1: but by the time he landed there was a problem.
Speaker 1: His hand started to swell and apparently swelled to about
Speaker 1: twice the size of normal H due to the H
Speaker 1: the changes in pressure and and and and so that's
Speaker 1: something you don't want to have happen if you can
Speaker 1: avoid it. That's true. That's true. Yeah. The the suit
Speaker 1: was actually made by a company from Massachusetts, David clark Um.
Speaker 1: They made suits for the Geminy missions as well as
Speaker 1: Space Shuttle missions. Gemini missions. If that sounds like an
Speaker 1: internal joke, it it sort of is. You gotta listen
Speaker 1: to you previous Space podcast. We did a series on
Speaker 1: the Gemini missions a few years ago. One of the
Speaker 1: UH astronauts from that time kept pronouncing it Geminy, and
Speaker 1: Jonathan's blood pressure just kept rising every time he said it.
Speaker 1: Jimminy Cricket. Yeah. So yeah, it was the same company
Speaker 1: that did that. They've they've made all kinds of suits
Speaker 1: for aeronautics and space for decades now. So um, you
Speaker 1: know they're they're well known, well respected firm to to
Speaker 1: have done that. And obviously since the jump was successful,
Speaker 1: no spoilers intended, but you know, well it's nice to know.
Speaker 1: It's must say, you can't really spoil something that already happened. Um, well,
Speaker 1: now if somebody's just now hearing about this, yeah, well
Speaker 1: then you have been hiding in a hole. You can
Speaker 1: you can watch actually watched this live when it happened,
Speaker 1: and uh, from about an hour into it. I turned
Speaker 1: it on after we've been on for an hour because
Speaker 1: the ascent took just over two hours to get to
Speaker 1: the right altitude. So, um, Jonathan told me about how
Speaker 1: he felt when bum Gardner opened the capsule door and
Speaker 1: started to step out, and they call him fearless Felix.
Speaker 1: That's the nickname here is sheer terror was what was
Speaker 1: going through me seeing his Yeah, well we'll get into it.
Speaker 1: But but to go back to the suit, it also
Speaker 1: could withstand temperatures as low as minus ninety degrees fahrenheit
Speaker 1: or minus sixty eight celsius or over one degrees fahrenheit
Speaker 1: or thirty seven point eight degrees celsius. So U also
Speaker 1: very important because, of course, at that elevation you were
Speaker 1: also talking about very very cold temperatures um and in
Speaker 1: fact there were parts of his fall that were colder
Speaker 1: than others. It was interesting because it actually warmed up
Speaker 1: a little bit from um I forget no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, not friction. I'm just talking about the ambient
Speaker 1: temperature actually warmed up, like there was a point in
Speaker 1: the atmosphere. Yeah. No, I was watching and they talked
Speaker 1: about it too. They said, well, you know, closer to
Speaker 1: the sun. I'm like, really, you're not that much closer.
Speaker 1: The Sun's ninety three million miles away. I think a
Speaker 1: few feet isn't a huge difference. But but it was interesting.
Speaker 1: You could watch and the temperature gauge was going up
Speaker 1: and went really low and then started creeping up again,
Speaker 1: just slightly, not like it wasn't like skyrocketing, but at
Speaker 1: the height where he was jumping at, the temperature was
Speaker 1: around minus ten fahrenheit, which is minus twenty three celsius.
Speaker 1: So I blame cows. Yeah, methane production, is that what
Speaker 1: you're talking about? Okay, I was trying to see where
Speaker 1: you're going there, not based on scientific fact, mostly because
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say cows. So yeah, So the
Speaker 1: suit had to be able to withstand these cold temperatures
Speaker 1: as well. And uh, his suit also had very it
Speaker 1: looked a lot like the space suits you would the
Speaker 1: uh you know in any NASA presentation or if you
Speaker 1: watch any of those launches. It looks a lot like those. Actually.
Speaker 1: It also looked a little bit um just from appearance's sake, Uh,
Speaker 1: sort of like the stuff that race car drivers wear,
Speaker 1: probably mostly because the you know, the names and the
Speaker 1: decos and things, right. Yeah. It also had it also
Speaker 1: had a sun visor that that Felix could put down
Speaker 1: or up if he needed to. H and the the
Speaker 1: visor itself was heated in order to have it, uh
Speaker 1: avoid icing issues. You know obviously if you're if you're
Speaker 1: going through super cold temperatures and you've you know, we
Speaker 1: give off a lot of water vapor as it turns out,
Speaker 1: and it could be there could be a lot of
Speaker 1: icing problems, both on the inside and outside of a suit.
Speaker 1: And uh, in fact, that was one of the issues
Speaker 1: that almost seemed to be a big problem during the
Speaker 1: the ascent, because it looked like, according to Felix, that
Speaker 1: the face plate was not heating properly. And uh, you
Speaker 1: know they I think the first time I heard about
Speaker 1: that was when he was around eighty thousand feet or
Speaker 1: so and still rising, obviously still climbing. And and then
Speaker 1: you hear the people on who are speaking during the
Speaker 1: whole ascent, you know, the people who are relaying information
Speaker 1: to the audience, saying, everyone here is trying to find
Speaker 1: out what options we have. And I'm like, wow, what
Speaker 1: options do you have? And the the option, the biggest,
Speaker 1: like last ditch option thing, you know, in order to
Speaker 1: get him back to Earth safely. You you you ditch
Speaker 1: the jump, right, But the capsule itself was connected to
Speaker 1: the balloon and hat and could disconnect and had its
Speaker 1: own parachute. So the worst case scenario, uh, action would
Speaker 1: be to cut the tie to the balloon, to deploy
Speaker 1: the parachute on the capsule and have the capsule come
Speaker 1: down to Earth. Now that was not ideal, uh most well,
Speaker 1: first of all, you're aboarding the jump, so that's not ideal.
Speaker 1: But also it would have been a bit of a
Speaker 1: rough landing. Now, the capsule itself had a crash sections
Speaker 1: built into it, crash pads to absorb some of that
Speaker 1: impact if it were to to have to land now
Speaker 1: and and of course they did detach the capsule at
Speaker 1: the end of the jump anyway, because they wanted to
Speaker 1: retreat the capsule. But um uh, it's it definitely would
Speaker 1: not have been a soft landing. It would have been
Speaker 1: a little rough. And it's interesting because the inside the
Speaker 1: capsule again looked very much like the Gemini capsules. Um
Speaker 1: it was. It was a tiny little thing. Really. The
Speaker 1: capsule was six ft tall or one eight meters and
Speaker 1: it weighed pounds or one thousands. And yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: you take a look at this and you're like, wow,
Speaker 1: this looks like it would fit, you know, in a
Speaker 1: in a special casing on the top of a rocket.
Speaker 1: It really did look like some of those early NASA spacecraft.
Speaker 1: True enough, So should we talk about the about the jump? Sure? Um,
Speaker 1: I mean there's other there are other things. Actually before
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the balloon. I want to
Speaker 1: talk about the balloon because the balloon is crazy, so
Speaker 1: it has its own story. Actually five for some of them. Well,
Speaker 1: the the weird thing I thought, the strangest thing to
Speaker 1: me about the balloon was how incredibly thin that material was.
Speaker 1: So uh it's it was made out of polyethylene plastic
Speaker 1: film and it was point zero zero zero eight inches thick.
Speaker 1: That's pretty thin. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty thin. Or point
Speaker 1: zero zero zero two point zero zero zero two centimeters thick.
Speaker 1: There we go. I'm not gonna get that number right, um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, super super thin. They called it a forty
Speaker 1: acre dry cleaner bag because it was essentially made of
Speaker 1: very similar stuff. Now, if you're thinking like, how could
Speaker 1: that possibly bear the weight of this capsule, which you
Speaker 1: know weighs quite a bit, uh, the real the way
Speaker 1: they did it was they used this load tape that
Speaker 1: was connected to the balloon, and the load tape was
Speaker 1: actually what bore the load of the capsule. The tape
Speaker 1: also had in it a special reflective material so that
Speaker 1: the balloon would show up on radar, very important for
Speaker 1: any aircraft in the area, although of course the mission
Speaker 1: was working along with air traffic controllers to make sure
Speaker 1: there wouldn't be any problems on that because you know,
Speaker 1: you can't really direct where a balloon is going to go.
Speaker 1: You are, you are at the mercy of the winds.
Speaker 1: Although this was over the desert in the southwestern United States,
Speaker 1: it was populated areas right near Roswell, New Mexico. So
Speaker 1: it's really just the military and aliens that were there.
Speaker 1: By the way, I'm totally joking. The whole Roswell alien
Speaker 1: thing is absolutely ludicrous. But anyway, um so, yeah, and
Speaker 1: that balloon was created by a t a aerospace and uh,
Speaker 1: here's some here's some stats on the balloons. Some some
Speaker 1: for people who are curious about how big. This was
Speaker 1: so uninflated it was five hundred ft long or one
Speaker 1: point six meters now at the height once it was inflated,
Speaker 1: and which takes about an hour. Takes aboun hour to
Speaker 1: inflate this balloon with helium. They used helium because it's
Speaker 1: a non flammable very important if you've been wondering why
Speaker 1: there's a helium shortage. Yeah yeah, talk about that's a
Speaker 1: big balloon. That's a big balloon can fill up with helium.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. The Yellow HC might have a few things
Speaker 1: to say to Felix. Explain to your kid why she
Speaker 1: can't get a door A balloon now you know. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: just get the door. A balloon filled with hydrogen. I
Speaker 1: can't imagine how anything bad happening from that. Take it
Speaker 1: to a birthday party, don't do that. Hydrogen is highly flammable.
Speaker 1: That's why they went with helium the candles. So the
Speaker 1: height of balloon once it was fully inflated at takeoff
Speaker 1: was about five or one hundred sixty seven point six meters,
Speaker 1: and once it reached its altitude, the height was more
Speaker 1: like three hundred thirty four point eight two ft or
Speaker 1: a hundred two point one because, again, as it got
Speaker 1: higher up in the atmosphere, the atmospheric pressure decreased, the
Speaker 1: balloon started to um The height began to decrease, but
Speaker 1: it's it's diameter increased. They began to round out quite
Speaker 1: a bit, because when you first looked at it looked
Speaker 1: like a tear drop. It was kind of tall and skinny,
Speaker 1: really compared compared to what we think of when we
Speaker 1: do think of birthday party balloons. You know, I mean
Speaker 1: those are tear drop shaped too, but not this is
Speaker 1: a lot longer than that, right, So once it got
Speaker 1: up to the room here, yeah, yeah, it definitely rounded
Speaker 1: out as it got higher up and uninflated. It weighed
Speaker 1: a smelt three thousand seven eight pounds or one you
Speaker 1: just wanted to say, smell I did. And yeah, and
Speaker 1: it also had a vent so that it could vent
Speaker 1: off helium. Now this is also really important. You know
Speaker 1: what bugs me those other balloons It didn't It didn't
Speaker 1: vent anger invented helium. Yeah. Now, the the reason for
Speaker 1: the vent is very important because the helium was expanding
Speaker 1: as the balloon was climbing, right, so at there does
Speaker 1: come a point where there's a possibility that that expansion
Speaker 1: could damage the balloon itself and tear the balloon. So
Speaker 1: the balloon needed to have a way of venting out
Speaker 1: excess helium in order to avoid that. And in fact,
Speaker 1: they did vent helium at least once or twice, especially
Speaker 1: once they passed that hundred twenty thousand feet mark, because
Speaker 1: out of again was their goal, and they went right
Speaker 1: by it and kept on going. Um. So, you know,
Speaker 1: there was a point where there was some concern about
Speaker 1: making sure that the the balloon and capsule maintained integrity
Speaker 1: because it was starting to go beyond what they had planned.
Speaker 1: So as long as they didn't run into any wire
Speaker 1: coat hangers, because that seems to be the downfall of
Speaker 1: most dry cleaner bags. Yeah, that's exactly the problem. Uh Yeah,
Speaker 1: they and they also had some pretty some other pretty
Speaker 1: cool equipment involved in this. They had nine high definition
Speaker 1: cameras that were mounted on both the suit and on
Speaker 1: an inside the capsule. So they had cameras mounted on
Speaker 1: on these arms pointed back at the capsule, so you
Speaker 1: could get these great views of the capsule as it
Speaker 1: was going up, also as the door opened, which that's
Speaker 1: the part where I was terrified, and I'll talk about
Speaker 1: that in a second, But there are also cameras on
Speaker 1: the suits they could capture footage during the actual jump.
Speaker 1: And plus beyond that, they had a helicopter that was
Speaker 1: using a camera mounted on a stabilization gyroscope to track
Speaker 1: Felix's movements. And they had ground cameras on these huge
Speaker 1: trucks with these uh these enormous um basis that were motorized,
Speaker 1: so they could track the progress of the balloon. And
Speaker 1: it's phenomenal to me because you think that's a balloon
Speaker 1: that is more or less twenty four miles up in
Speaker 1: the air. So to have a camera that can capture
Speaker 1: something that's that far away is pretty amazing. You know.
Speaker 1: You think about that for a second, you're like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got a digital zoom on my camera because at
Speaker 1: the one point seven and well, this camera can capture
Speaker 1: something that's twenty four miles away. Well, tracking the balloon
Speaker 1: was a whole lot easier than tracking Felix after he
Speaker 1: stepped out of the capsule. Right, he's much first of all, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: he doesn't have that reflectively smaller, although not that much smaller.
Speaker 1: It's the six foot tall capsule. He was moving a
Speaker 1: whole lot fast. Yes, yes, because he was he was
Speaker 1: going downwards. Um, and yeah, that was That was definitely.
Speaker 1: I mean, the footage that they captured was pretty phenomenal.
Speaker 1: And especially when you sit there and think about the
Speaker 1: challenges involved and and beyond that, not just capturing the footage,
Speaker 1: but transmitting the footage getting that live feed from the capsule,
Speaker 1: you're thinking, wow, that's they had to dedicate a lot
Speaker 1: of bandwidth, you know, in order to get that information
Speaker 1: from the capsule to the ground and stream it out live.
Speaker 1: And in fact, they had three dedicated DEO down links
Speaker 1: with built in redundancy to get that information down to
Speaker 1: the ground, and then they had a fiber optic network
Speaker 1: on the ground to process that information, and they had
Speaker 1: live switching so they could switch you know, different cameras
Speaker 1: at different times to give the best angle or the
Speaker 1: best camera experience at any given moment, which was pretty
Speaker 1: you know, this was it was clearly something that the
Speaker 1: whole media side of it was. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of thought put toward it, which is, you know, that's
Speaker 1: so getting to the actual jump. Once they got to
Speaker 1: the point where uh, they had reached the right altitude, uh,
Speaker 1: they had to go through a very long checklist to
Speaker 1: make sure that everything was prepared before the jump, and
Speaker 1: that involved pressurizing the suit, disconnecting the suits from the
Speaker 1: suit from the capsule because things, the capsule had its
Speaker 1: own oxygen supply because again at that elevation, uh, the
Speaker 1: atmosphere is so thin that we would not be able
Speaker 1: to breathe up there. So the capsule it's own oxygen supply,
Speaker 1: and then the suit did as well. So he had
Speaker 1: to detach the suit from the capsule because clearly you
Speaker 1: can't jump if you're still got all these hoses connected
Speaker 1: where you can it would not go well. So there
Speaker 1: was that there was the whole depressurization, opening up the door,
Speaker 1: moving the chair around quite a bit. The chair inside
Speaker 1: the capsule could move forward and backward a little so
Speaker 1: that he could reach various controls um and it was
Speaker 1: the point where he had to move the chair back.
Speaker 1: He had depressurized, the capsule, pressurized the suit, the door
Speaker 1: had opened, and then they used an exterior camera to
Speaker 1: capture the moment where he moves. He's lifted his feet
Speaker 1: up so they're above the threshold of the little capsule door,
Speaker 1: and then he moves the chair forward, which means his
Speaker 1: feet come out of the doorway and over nothing. And
Speaker 1: that's where I freaked out. At that point he was
Speaker 1: he had to stand on a a platform that was
Speaker 1: about the size of an average skateboard. Yeah, and there
Speaker 1: he isn't a space suit standing on a skateboard sized platform,
Speaker 1: holding onto these rails that are on either side of
Speaker 1: the capsule door. And uh, once he had to go ahead,
Speaker 1: he let go and started falling. And I don't think
Speaker 1: I breathed until until he stopped spinning. So here's one
Speaker 1: of the issues about jumping at that height. So again,
Speaker 1: atmosphere is really thin, right, you don't immediately start to
Speaker 1: slow down. In fact, the atmosphere is so thin that
Speaker 1: you will go faster than you would if you jumped
Speaker 1: from uh, you know, any other height. Like you know,
Speaker 1: you don't have anything pushing against you, or not not
Speaker 1: as much pushing against you, because there is atmosphere out there,
Speaker 1: it's just not as much it's in the stratosphere at
Speaker 1: this point. And in case you're wondering, I happen to
Speaker 1: catch a news report in which they had asked him,
Speaker 1: and Felix said that he didn't look down, he was
Speaker 1: looking straight out, which at that at that altitude, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure how you could avoid it because the earth
Speaker 1: is you could see the curvature, curvature of the Earth,
Speaker 1: and you're going, okay, that's That's something else that's kind
Speaker 1: of interesting is that the curvature you can see it
Speaker 1: at that altitude. But uh, the if you look at
Speaker 1: the footage from the jump, the curvature is incredibly evident.
Speaker 1: Like you it's just it's it's it's obvious. The reason
Speaker 1: it's obvious is because the camera lens, it's a wide
Speaker 1: angle camera lens, so it artificially has bent the edges
Speaker 1: so it looks like the the curvature is much more.
Speaker 1: It looks how much further up than he really was. Um.
Speaker 1: But in reality that you could you from what I've
Speaker 1: been told, you can see the curvature at that altitude.
Speaker 1: It's just not as dramatic as what it appeared as
Speaker 1: on the live stream. So I just wanted to point
Speaker 1: that out. But but at that altitude, he he um.
Speaker 1: He moved very quickly into a very fast speed thirty
Speaker 1: two ft per second per second or nine point seven
Speaker 1: five four per second square. That's the acceleration of gravity. People,
Speaker 1: if you, if you are, if you are at all
Speaker 1: interested in physics, you will memorize that and use it
Speaker 1: all the time. So he rapidly increased to that speed.
Speaker 1: His his his top speed UH is estimated because we
Speaker 1: at the time of the recording of this podcast, we
Speaker 1: do not have the final information. But his top speed
Speaker 1: was estimated at eight hundred thirty three point nine miles
Speaker 1: per hour or one thousand, three hundred forty two point
Speaker 1: eight kilometers per hour mock one point to four. Yes,
Speaker 1: so mock being the speed of sound. He had broken
Speaker 1: the sound barrier, the first human to do so un
Speaker 1: unaided by any sort of vehicle. Yes, and um, that's
Speaker 1: another interesting point than the interview with the scientist that
Speaker 1: I had watched said that, Um, the speed of sound
Speaker 1: is a little different at that altitude. To write sound
Speaker 1: sound travels, you know, the speed of sound is dependent
Speaker 1: upon the medium through which it's traveling. Sound will travel
Speaker 1: at a different rate of speed depending on if you
Speaker 1: are and you know, it will travel at different race
Speaker 1: speed from sea level two feet. Uh, it'll it travels
Speaker 1: at a different rate if it's through water or through
Speaker 1: a solid. So, um, yeah, it's one of the In fact,
Speaker 1: we should might as well. This is a little bit
Speaker 1: of a tangent, but lights the same way light travels
Speaker 1: at you you've heard of the speed of light being
Speaker 1: a constant. That's true, but that's talking about the speed
Speaker 1: of light in a vacuum. The speed of light will
Speaker 1: change depending on what it's traveling through. Now most of
Speaker 1: the time for us as human beings, that changes, Uh,
Speaker 1: imperceptible to us without incredibly sensitive measuring equipment. So to us,
Speaker 1: it's you know, going at at the speed of light
Speaker 1: or just a hair under the speed of light is
Speaker 1: effectively the same thing for us. Yeah, And I've tried
Speaker 1: to observe that myself at my home. But I keep
Speaker 1: getting dust in my eye every time I open that
Speaker 1: little bag, and it doesn't seem like there's any light
Speaker 1: in there at all. But it may be the dust.
Speaker 1: I can't tell vacuum, So you should go with the dice.
Speaker 1: And that's the um. But yeah, he uh. It's funny
Speaker 1: because when you get the idea of somebody jumping out
Speaker 1: of an airplane, you're doing a traditional skydive. Um. Most
Speaker 1: of us have a pretty good idea of what that
Speaker 1: quote unquote looks like. You You you stand in the door,
Speaker 1: you jump out of the plane, and you instantly put
Speaker 1: out your arms and legs and you just sort of
Speaker 1: glide until you feel like it's time to open your shoes.
Speaker 1: Then you pull it and go. Well, Felix wasn't as graceful,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't his fault. He is it is. It
Speaker 1: turns out that whole atmosphere being thinner thing kind of
Speaker 1: affects the way you fall at that he couldn't use
Speaker 1: air resistance to help orient himself, because that's one thing.
Speaker 1: Experienced skydivers can do all sorts of really cool maneuvers
Speaker 1: while they're while they're diving and it's all due to
Speaker 1: the whole air resistance and being able to use their
Speaker 1: bodies to angle in certain ways. Either they can do
Speaker 1: a you know, they can they can try to resist
Speaker 1: or change their wind resistance, like like reduce it to
Speaker 1: a point where they're falling very very very fast. Or
Speaker 1: they can try to increase their wind resistance by increasing
Speaker 1: the surface area as much as possible the somersaults and
Speaker 1: other kinds of But at that altitude, there wasn't enough air,
Speaker 1: not enough atmosphere to be able to do that. So
Speaker 1: there wasn't there wasn't that level of control, and so
Speaker 1: Felix did start spinning. Uh. And if you watch the video,
Speaker 1: that also was terrifying because you can see him spinning
Speaker 1: around and around. You're like, okay, I sure hope he's
Speaker 1: able to maintain consciousness not black out because uh, Kittenger said,
Speaker 1: you know, he blacked out during his fall because of
Speaker 1: us similar issue. And that's why the drug shoot was
Speaker 1: so important, was too. It was actually I think it
Speaker 1: was not the hundred and two thousand foot jump, but
Speaker 1: the previous one the Kinder did where he blacked out,
Speaker 1: and so that's why the drug shoot was so important
Speaker 1: for him um in his in his highest jump. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you could see that spinning happening. But then once once
Speaker 1: he did start hitting the the next levels where the
Speaker 1: atmosphere is starting to to increase in density, he was
Speaker 1: able to orient himself into a traditional skydive position, the
Speaker 1: delta POSITIONE. And and is that what's called? That's interesting.
Speaker 1: I've never gone skydiving, so I know very little about it.
Speaker 1: Although and Internet, this is just between me and you.
Speaker 1: Do not tell my wife because she would flip out.
Speaker 1: But I am planning on doing a skydiving jump, possibly
Speaker 1: during CE. Are not. I am really Yeah, me and
Speaker 1: uh I as actar of this Weekend Tech, are thinking
Speaker 1: about doing some skydiving during CS. Uh. Don't into the
Speaker 1: Las Vegas Convention Center, doubtful. Um, it'll be much further
Speaker 1: out into the desert. But don't tell my wife because
Speaker 1: she would flip out. Okay, pinky swear Okay. So anyway, yeah,
Speaker 1: he assumed that position, and then that was the point
Speaker 1: where I was I said, oh, good, Well, then he's
Speaker 1: clearly he's clearly conscious and he's aware of what's going
Speaker 1: on and he's able to respond. Um. He uh deployed
Speaker 1: his shoot at the appropriate time. And uh, that was
Speaker 1: a big that that got a big cheer from ground control.
Speaker 1: And did you see did you watch any of the
Speaker 1: video of his landing. It was a perfect landing. He
Speaker 1: it was like it was like he just stepped off
Speaker 1: a step. Yeah, Like it wasn't like he just came
Speaker 1: from one thousand feet. It was like he had just
Speaker 1: walked down a set of stairs. Yeah, I would have
Speaker 1: looked like a sack of potatoes from a would beg
Speaker 1: I would have been dragged at least another few hundred meters.
Speaker 1: He's an accomplished jumper. He's accomplished base jumper um, which
Speaker 1: is you know, jumping off of ironically enough, it's you know,
Speaker 1: lower altitudes, bridges and all sorts of other different physical
Speaker 1: features just you know. So he's he's this is well,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't try this at home anyway, but I mean,
Speaker 1: this is not something from that that an inexperienced person did.
Speaker 1: He's uh, clearly a well accomplished jumper. And and he yeah,
Speaker 1: it was an absolutely perfect landing. And then he got
Speaker 1: as soon as he came to a stop, he went
Speaker 1: down on his knees and put his hands up in
Speaker 1: the air like that was pretty awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. I had made the comment of if I
Speaker 1: had done that, I would have made the decision I
Speaker 1: am never leaving the ground to end. From now on,
Speaker 1: people bring stuff to me. I I did my part,
Speaker 1: like I'm not going back over the ocean. You bring
Speaker 1: that continent, right, I want to go to London. Bring
Speaker 1: London here. That was. It was an absolutely amazing, amazing
Speaker 1: feat and it does have its uh, it does have
Speaker 1: a lot of importance. You might not necessarily believe that.
Speaker 1: You might think of it as simply some sort of stunt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but going beyond that, I mean, there are First of all,
Speaker 1: this this kind of is a proof of concept of
Speaker 1: something that NASA was talking about in the sixties when
Speaker 1: they were thinking about if there were a problem with
Speaker 1: a spacecraft, would it be possible for astronauts to space
Speaker 1: dive back to Earth? Would it would there be any
Speaker 1: way they could do that? Um or is that just
Speaker 1: a you know, outside the realm of our our abilities?
Speaker 1: And they theorized that it would be possible, but they
Speaker 1: were they were never able to test it. Kitten or
Speaker 1: jumps were kind of related to that, and a lot
Speaker 1: of the data that they collected during this jomp. There
Speaker 1: was stuff that they could put toward developing more safety
Speaker 1: features for astronauts as well as space tourists, because whoever
Speaker 1: thought that would become a thing, But now you know, well, UM,
Speaker 1: and there I saw some some people talking about the
Speaker 1: Space Shuttle program and of course the the the two
Speaker 1: famous disasters. UM. One of the people that has been
Speaker 1: working on this is UM the husband of one of
Speaker 1: the people who perished in the Columbia accident. Um. They
Speaker 1: were too high to have done something like this. They
Speaker 1: were moving, they were too far out from the planet
Speaker 1: when the the accident happened, and and they were moving
Speaker 1: way too fast, something like Mark seventeen. I think I
Speaker 1: remember UM reading it was Dr Jonathan Clark, who was
Speaker 1: a former NASA flight surgeon. His wife, Laurel Um died
Speaker 1: in that accident, so uh, you know, he was he
Speaker 1: was involved in the process of of going through the
Speaker 1: safety procedures here. UM. He's dedicated his life to UM
Speaker 1: working on safe better safety in space. And UM. Uh
Speaker 1: you know, as far as the Challenger incident, well, it's
Speaker 1: it's sort of unclear, UM, whether they would have been
Speaker 1: able to get out or not. UM. Of course, some
Speaker 1: of the the procedures they developed for the Space Shuttle
Speaker 1: were after that as a result of that accident. So um,
Speaker 1: but you know, in the future or depending on on
Speaker 1: the different kinds of missions that are undertaken, you know,
Speaker 1: either by NASSA or another government space agency, or by
Speaker 1: private enterprise. You know, I think that this information could
Speaker 1: prove useful, um, you know, in an emergency or you know,
Speaker 1: perhaps as a form of space tourism. I don't know well.
Speaker 1: And and and just learning learning what the effects are
Speaker 1: these the things that that that Felix experience during this
Speaker 1: whole jump, I mean everything from breaking the sound barrier
Speaker 1: that no one was really sure what would happen to
Speaker 1: a person. And in fact, to be fair, as of
Speaker 1: the recording of this podcast, we cannot be certain that
Speaker 1: he did break that barrier because the final numbers haven't
Speaker 1: come in. He had a did you see how he
Speaker 1: would know if he broke the sound barrier his So
Speaker 1: so he has a chess plate or he had a
Speaker 1: chess plate on his on a suit that contained a
Speaker 1: lot of different sensors, telemetry, you know, information, GPS, all
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff. If the sensors detected that the
Speaker 1: suit had exceeded the speed of sound, it would send
Speaker 1: a ringtone to his helmet. But he said he was
Speaker 1: concentrating so hard on what was going on that he
Speaker 1: totally did not He didn't notice anything. So it may
Speaker 1: have gone off or it may not have gone off,
Speaker 1: and he would he doesn't know because he was you know,
Speaker 1: at that point, I'm kind of just really paying attention
Speaker 1: to what's going on, especially once you know, he came
Speaker 1: out of that spin. So I'm flying here. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: got a lady, I'm flying here. Yeah. But yeah, there
Speaker 1: are there are a lot of There are a lot
Speaker 1: of things that this could help with, including designing new
Speaker 1: types of space suits that are effective and are not
Speaker 1: as you know, we can always make advances in that
Speaker 1: that realm. We don't want it to be so clunky
Speaker 1: that you can't maneuver around within the confines of a
Speaker 1: space vehicle. But it still has to have the adequate
Speaker 1: levels of protection necessary to make to maintain the health
Speaker 1: and safety of our astronauts. So that's an important thing
Speaker 1: to to keep in mind too. Granted, I don't think
Speaker 1: I don't think most of our space suits will necessarily
Speaker 1: have a sponsor logos on them, but they will. Um.
Speaker 1: I was appointed that the the the space suit didn't
Speaker 1: have wings. Well it was interesting too to uh to
Speaker 1: compare and and you know, I'm going in my head
Speaker 1: here looking at the the suits that they wore in
Speaker 1: uh NASA launches from the nineteen sixties and seventies, more
Speaker 1: so much bulkier um than this. Well, I mean they
Speaker 1: were they were intended for different purposes, but I imagine
Speaker 1: the equipment and this newer suit was far more advanced
Speaker 1: than what kitten Ger wore on his jumps. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know that with the technology advances. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's funny. They in a way, they resemble more what
Speaker 1: Hollywood um suggest for you know, space fighter pilots than
Speaker 1: from what the astronauts the the actual astronauts from from
Speaker 1: our own planet um or back in the days when
Speaker 1: that was so common. I look forward to to the
Speaker 1: day when we have space suits for space jumps that
Speaker 1: are like the ones in the documentary Star Trek, not
Speaker 1: the not the original motion picture Star Trek, but the
Speaker 1: the J. J. Abrams documentary Star Trek. The J. J.
Speaker 1: Abrams documentary Star Trek colon the lens flare. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: do you have anything else you want to talk about this,
Speaker 1: this jump in particular. It was a really neat thing
Speaker 1: to watch live and and Twitter was going bonkers as
Speaker 1: this was happening. I saw so many people I know
Speaker 1: tweeting about this, and um uh it just seemed like
Speaker 1: there was an overall sense of excitement and and not
Speaker 1: I was not the only terrified person on Earth watching this. Um.
Speaker 1: And you can watch the entire presentation as well. It's
Speaker 1: it's up online so you can go and watch, or
Speaker 1: you can watch segments of it if you don't have
Speaker 1: you know, two and a half hours to burn. But uh,
Speaker 1: it's It's definitely something, something amazing. It's one of those
Speaker 1: moments in human achievement where you think, wow, it never
Speaker 1: would have occurred to me that this is something that
Speaker 1: anyone would want to do, and if they wanted to
Speaker 1: do it, I can't imagine it being possible. And yet
Speaker 1: both of those things happened. Yep, it was. It was
Speaker 1: an amazing event, and uh I'm glad it ended so well. Yes, perfect, yep, yep,
Speaker 1: it was so many different things could have gone wrong.
Speaker 1: I'm glad of a lot of really smart people worked
Speaker 1: on this to make sure it went off without without
Speaker 1: any major glitches. So my hat is off to you
Speaker 1: and uh, all of the team that was responsible for
Speaker 1: this is pretty phenomenal. So Felix, go put up your
Speaker 1: feet relax um, you know, maybe maybe slow down a
Speaker 1: little bit for a while. You know you stopping smell
Speaker 1: the roses, don't and not a thousand deep. Keep your
Speaker 1: feet on the ground and keep reaching for the start. Right. So, guys,
Speaker 1: if you have any subjects you think we should cover
Speaker 1: in future episodes of tech Stuff, I highly recommend you
Speaker 1: get in touch with us and let us know, because
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