PaulS wrote:

He broke the sound barrier in free-fall.

I wonder if he heard it? In an airplane, I never have heard anything different.

Here is a nice write-up but what he might have heard was not discussed.

www.grindtv.com/outdoo...+miles+up/

Vince wrote:

and there are only two things that fall from the sky...bird crap and fools.

Man he crushed it..and lived! Yer chances of dying doing this are huge, actually your chances of surviving are very very slim.

God the SPEED. Congrats all round.

I hope the make it open to the public- I'm first in line!

It was an interesting operation, you could hear the fear in his voice, I guess that happens when you take on a challenge such as that but BIG Ups to him. I'm not one to jump out of perfectly good aircraft either.....

The pics are awesome. From the edge of space! That's just crazy, and exciting. I'd jump at the chance.

And- one record still stands for Col. Kittinger- longest free-fall. Woohoo for old school!

With todays technology it still aint easy- can't even begin to imagine doing it with the old school stuff.

stovepipe wrote:

The pics are awesome.

Yea, I loved it that they used hi-res cameras! What a door step!! With that memorizing view, I wouldn't be surprised if he stayed up there. What happen to the ballon?

I watched it live on the internet and had my sister on the phone watching it with me. Very exciting and incredible coverage. I doubt he heard any sonic boom because the atmosphere is so thin he passed the sound barrier speed in a matter of a few seconds of leaving the capsule. Not enough friction in that thin air to bother him going through the sound barrier. You could hear him breathing (which was cool) and I half expected him to toss his cookies while spinning around and around. That guy knew how to get out of the spin and more stable. Or he learned real fast.

After watching it all and the coverage was over, my sister and I thought about how meaningless the rest of our day would be. Like so what the heck we're going to do some laundry and maybe gas up the car? How exciting is that....and this guy just jumped from 24 miles out of a helium balloon to a 2 point walking landing like nothing special. I'm impressed to say the least. I bet he wanted to sit there in that thing and enjoy the view for a while too, but he sure had a great drop to enjoy.

yea the tumbling sure looked like barf material....

Here is a short video that was released yesterday with a view from his head cam. www.liveleak.com/view?...1350274678

BLUUUUUUURGH ! I think I just lost my dinner watching that.

It wouldn't have been "fog" in of my helmet.

slimjim wrote:

stovepipe wrote: The pics are awesome. Yea, I loved it that they used hi-res cameras! What a door step!! With that memorizing view, I wouldn't be surprised if he stayed up there. What happen to the ballon?

The teather is cut and the gondola drops then 'chute's to earth. It's a trippl-redundant cutter, cool thing.

The ballon prolly keeps going 'til it bursts then lands in a foriegn country to be used as building material or recycling for dress covers at 432 dry cleaners throughout the region.

stovepipe wrote:

The ballon prolly keeps going 'til it bursts then lands in a foriegn country to be used as building material or recycling for dress covers at 432 dry cleaners throughout the region.

LOL. just the morning chuckle I needed.

So high up you could actually miss the world. Major leap of faith. No way you have any clue as to where yer coming down. Or in how many pieces. The amount of things that could go wrong? You do the math.

Wow.

7263

I really wonder how much higher we can jump from? This is interesting stuff! Man the VIEW must have been incredible!