…is about to jump. He’s almost to altitude. Here’s a live link. He just beat Kittinger’s altitude record on his way to his ultimate altitude.
[Update a while after the successful dive and landing]
Here’s the Gray Lady’s take:
“It was harder than I expected,” Mr. Baumgarter said after returning by helicopter to mission control in Roswell. “Trust me, when you stand up there on top of the world, you become so humble. It’s not about breaking records anymore. It’s not about getting scientific data. It’s all about coming home.”
I’m going to have to add this to my space safety paper. No one in the government was responsible for regulating his safety to jump from a balloon. Why would they do it for him to jump from a rocket?
[Update a few minutes later]
An interesting coincidence (it has to be that, because he wanted to do it earlier this week). The first supersonic flight of a human in a suit took place on the 65th anniversary of the first controlled supersonic flight of an aircraft. And he’s going to do it again with an F-15 to commemorate it.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Talk about one giant leap for a man.
I wish I had sound. He’s just sitting there. Wait, he’s moving.
I like “what if he goes so fast he breaks the time barrier and crashes in 1947 Roswell, NM?”
No, he’s just sitting there. The outside pressure is like mars (“nobody could survive that!”) What if he can’t get the door open? Will he equalize pressure first?
Under chute and looking good. 128,000 feet. Impressive.
24.24 miles. He made it look easy.
“Now how do I get my balloon back?”
That was just awesome! Kudos to the people involved.
He made it. And yes. Obama, he did do it himself. No tax money involved!
I rather doubt that no tax money was involved. Nevermind vague claims about using the tax-supported highway system to get to the launch site. Nevermind only slightly less vague claims about tax-supported weather tracking, and so forth. How about one of the key elements of Baumgartner’s effort — his spacesuit?
Baumgartner’s spacesuit was developed by the David Clark company: http://www.davidclark.com/Aerospace/aerospac.shtml
Look at all those projects they were involved in, projects which gave them the expertise to make Baumgartner’s suit: X-1, X-15, RB-57, NF-104, F-106, F-4, F-15, XB-70, HL-10, X-24, U-2, AND SR-71 Blackbird, Gemini, Apollo, and the Shuttle. Seems to me that the tax payers were involved, and I remain convinced that it was a good investment. I bet Baumgartner thinks so too.
Clearly, he didn’t make that jump. Somebody in government did it for him.
You said that so much better than I did. At least Bob is consistent.
Granted, there have been advancements in science and technology that are a result of tax-payer funds. But that’s not the issue. The problem is the vast amounts of tax-payer money that government wastes through inefficiencies, mismanagement and cronyism (like on BS Green projects).
Baumgartner’s spacesuit was developed by the David Clark company: http://www.davidclark.com/Aerospace/aerospac.shtml
Look at all those projects they were involved in, projects which gave them the expertise to make Baumgartner’s suit: X-1, X-15, RB-57, NF-104, F-106, F-4, F-15, XB-70, HL-10, X-24, U-2, AND SR-71 Blackbird, Gemini, Apollo, and the Shuttle. Seems to me that the tax payers were involved, and I remain convinced that it was a good investment. I bet Baumgartner thinks so too.
Let’s see. The David Clark company is private. So no taxpayer money there. All those projects, while publicly funded, had nothing to do with the jump in question. So, no taxpayers were involved.
” All those projects, while publicly funded, had nothing to do with the jump in question.”
Really? That’s very interesting! Please tell us more about Baumgartner’s suit. I’d be very interested in a spacesuit project started from scratch. I imagine Rand will take particular interest in the glove design. Details very appreciated!
Shorter Bob: “David Clark developed suit expertise on government contracts, so let’s pour millions into Solyndra!”
I’d rather see the Department of Energy give funding to private research companies to work on the HL-10 and X-24 of various energy generation processes. I don’t follow Polywell, so I don’t know if it is a good candidate for additional funding, but that’s the sort of company, rather than Solyndra, that seems analogous to NASA funding the David Clark company.
Belatedly googling shows that the US Navy (rather than the Department of Energy) does, in fact, give money to Polywell. I hope it pans out!
One more point: Polywell says that the US Navy is its sole customer, its sole source of funding. I credit Obama. 🙂
I credit Obama.
Of course you do. Even though he’s probably never heard of it.
Do you also credit Obama for the lack of adequate security in Benghazi?
Well, that was my joke. Of course the President (any President) doesn’t manage security at random embassies and doesn’t manage the funding for Solyndra & Polywell. (Sure he might have heard about Solyndra, enough to mention it in a speech, but he has to hope the funding is properly vetted by various appointed officials.) I think everyone understands this, which is why the Benghazi “controversy” seems silly to me, but I guess that’s for a different thread.
Do you think that the president was unaware of the campaign donations by the Solyndra investors? Or of the illegal sweetheart deal they got with respect to being first in line for the taxpayers’ money in the event of a bankruptcy?
Sure he might have heard about Solyndra, enough to mention it in a speech
Solyndra is hardly the only “green” energy loan deal to go bad under Obama. The reason its the most famous is because Obama gave a speech at Solyndra, not just mentioned it in a speech. Before you respond to Rand, I suggest you study up on your knowledge of events.
Rand, my honest answer is that this is the first I have heard about that. I assume you covered this (or a mainstream news source did) and I assume you could reasonably expect me to know about it. I read your blog, but I don’t follow everything. I could look into it and get back to you, if you genuinely care what I think.
Headline: “Man skydives from weather balloon.”
Village Idiot: “He couldn’t have done it without powered flight!”
What a clownish argument. Let me compare it to another clownish argument.
Atoms diffuse throughout our world to the point that some of the dead are part of the living. Meaning it’s highly likely that you’ve eaten some bits of Plato.
So do you eat dead greeks?
To put it in more perspective (perspective; the thing often lacking in a lefty argument.) Taxes are a pervasive given. You could easily claim that everything is somehow connected to taxes and therefore nothing is not. That’s Liz Warren’s insidious claim.
You would take away every achievement in your worship of the state.
I don’t want to take anything away from Baumgartner’s achievement. I actually don’t know: did he think of the project by himself? If so, in some ways, he achieved more than Neil and Buzz, strictly in the sense that they were filling roles assigned by NASA, while Baumgartner created a role for himself. That applies even more so to Elon Musk and other newspace entrepreneurs. But in pointing out the role the legacy of US aerospace programs played in Baumgartner’s project, I’m celebrating the US citizen, who pays taxes to be part of a spacefaring nation which has nurtured companies like the David Clark company and its awesome spacesuits.
Bob, maybe like Obama you don’t realize it, but those of us that actually create stuff that hear you say that are highly insulted.
Maybe you don’t mean it that way, but that is how we hear it.
Well, I don’t mean it in a way that is insulting at all, so what insult are you hearing? Do you think I’m paying more tribute to the taxpayers than to the engineers at private companies who created aerospace products? Do you think I’m paying more tribute to the taxpayers than to the corporate leadership of those companies, or to the investors who took a risk to finance those companies (at least when they weren’t involved in cost-plus government contracts)?
But in pointing out the role the legacy of US aerospace programs played in Baumgartner’s project, I’m celebrating the US citizen, who pays taxes to be part of a spacefaring nation which has nurtured companies like the David Clark company and its awesome spacesuits.
One wonders whether or not we would be farther along today without all of this government “help”.
In my lifetime I have witnessed three multibillion dollar efforts that ended up wasting almost those entire sums of money.
AT&T was going to put up its own LEO constellation before it bowed out because NASA and the DoD were funding Hughes to make GEO comsats.
One wonders if we had done this incrementally, without the government help, whether or not private space would be flourishing more than it is today.
I think that’s a very interesting question. There are all sorts of alternative histories to imagine. As a starting point, do we imagine that the USSR isn’t interested in space, or do we imagine US (and world-wide) private space endeavors developing alongside the USSR’s government effort. Probably just like you, I wonder about how permanent orbital habitation, moon visits, and perhaps even moon habitation would occur in a strictly private setting, but I also wonder how the USSR’s activities in space would change if there was no US government effort.
If private efforts made a profit from mineral exploitation (as opposed to solar power generation or tourism), it might really upset the Soviets. Using up the lowest hanging fruit (eg the most easily obtainable lunar ice) might really freak them out.
The US sold the Soviet Union lots of wheat throughout the Cold War. The Soviet money spread throughout our economy, so actually all US accomplishments, technology, and infrastructure are the result of initiatives by the Kremlin.
The US (and the USSR, but lets ignore their space program for this post) developed spacesuits for its particular needs. Yes, the US government spent tax dollars at spacesuit companies, but more importantly, it decided it wanted spacesuits and then led spacesuit projects, in the name of the US citizenry. That kind of leadership by the USA, that kind of directed expenditures of money for particular projects, is rather different from the role ordinary consumers take when they buy products. The USSR was an ordinary consumer (in its capacity as a wheat buyer), whereas the USA was a leader (in its capacity as a leader, and as a unique customer).
If you want to explain how the needs of the USSR led the USSR to direct the American wheat industry to develop new techniques and products, and then show how wheat industry spinoffs changed the rest of the American society, well, then you’d have a point.
Better yet, show me a Kansas wheat farmer engaged in a spectacular threshing stunt involving supersonic hammers and sickles, and sure, I’ll want to give the Kremlin some of the credit.
Rand, I apologize for posting goofup.
George, The US (and the USSR, but lets ignore their space program for this post) developed spacesuits for its particular needs. Yes, the US government spent tax dollars at spacesuit companies, but more importantly, it decided it wanted spacesuits and then led spacesuit projects, in the name of the US citizenry. That kind of leadership by the USA, that kind of directed expenditures of money for particular projects, is rather different from the role ordinary consumers take when they buy products. The USSR was an ordinary consumer (in its capacity as a wheat buyer), whereas the USA was a leader (in its capacity as a leader, and as a unique customer).
If you want to explain how the needs of the USSR led the USSR to direct the American wheat industry to develop new techniques and products, and then show how wheat industry spinoffs changed the rest of the American society, well, then you’d have a point.
Better yet, show me a Kansas wheat farmer engaged in a spectacular threshing stunt involving supersonic hammers and sickles, and sure, I’ll want to give the Kremlin some of the credit.
Bob’s sarcasm meter seems to be broken.
From the NYT article, Mr. Baumgartner reached a maximum speed of 833.9 mph during his jump from more than 24 miles over the New Mexico desert. That is a speed of Mach 1.24.
To put that into perspective, that’s faster than the top speed of an F-100D Super Sabre and just a few MPH slower than the top speed of a T-38 Talon supersonic jet trainer. I think that’s considerably faster than they thought he’d hit which may explain why he didn’t break Joe Kittenger’s free fall duration record.
History does not repeat but it rhymes…
Where would aviation be if Langley had been a success?
Clearly WWI and the AirMail act drove some aviation progress, but it was mostly driven by private companies …some had the gov as primary customer but they competed in a open fashion no cost plus bs…
Innovation is doomed when its more cost effective to spend 100K lobbying than it is to spend 100K on research…. best evidence is that lobbing ROI is 10000%+ Lobbying </A?