decidedly a Darwin candidate

[gh]

attempting to break the sound barrier whilst parachuting from 23M up?!!!!


http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... story.html

[Conor Dary]

Of course it was Joe Kittinger who set the record way back in 1960. Fascinating story in the New Yorker a few years ago. No wind at all, or a sense of speed, yet falling about 600 miles an hour.

[cullman]

Dr. John Paul Stapp is another pioneer and a colleague of Joe Kittinger back then. Stapp is the scientist who rode the rocket sled back in the 1950s and experienced -42g upon deceleration.

[gh]

I remember a long story about Kittinger in National Geographic back in the day. And the photos of Stapp's distorted face still show up in all kinds of places.

[jeremyp]

"His blood could boil. His lungs could overinflate. The vessels in his brain could burst. His eyes could hemorrhage."

At this point I stopped reading in case they got down to the "naughty bits."

[Conor Dary]

I forgot I had dvr'd a segment about Kittinger's jump a few months ago. When his balloon was at 50,000 feet his right hand glove had a puncture and started to leak. He knew blood would start to back up there, but he went on anyways. In the end it was no problem.

Also after jumping out he was looking at the ground at first with no sense of speed, like he was floating in space. Then he turned around and saw the balloon going away at incredible speed. In fact he was the one falling at the speed of sound.

It took him 15 minutes to get from 103,000 feet to the ground. By the way, he is 84 and still around.

[JRM]

"His blood could boil. His lungs could overinflate. The vessels in his brain could burst. His eyes could hemorrhage."

At this point I stopped reading in case they got down to the "naughty bits."

This sounds like Dr. McCoy's rant from the last Star Trek movie:

Don't pander to me, kid. One tiny crack in the hull, and our blood boils in thirteen seconds. Solar flare might crop up, cook us in our seats. And wait till you're sitting pretty with a case of Andorian shingles. See if you're still so relaxed when your eyeballs are bleeding! Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.

[br]

The launch/jump has been pushed back 1 day due to high winds. Now scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 9 at 5:00 AM pacific time, 12:00 GMT. Watch it live here : http://www.youtube.com/redbull

[tandfman]

Postponed again because of wind. Earliest will now be Thursday.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/10 ... diver.html

[BillVol]

Going out on a limb here in guessing this is a white guy and not a brother.

[jazzcyclist]

Going out on a limb here in guessing this is a white guy and not a brother.

That reminds me of a Black comedian who talked about how you can always tell the race of a person by how they died.

[br]

Launch time now scheduled for 8:15 am Pacific

http://www.redbullstratos.com/