…has been broken already. It’s inevitable that people are going to want to do this from a hundred kilometers.
[Update a while later]
Here’s the press release:
Roswell, NM – Oct. 24, 2014 – Following the record-breaking 135,908-foot space dive accomplished by Google’s Alan Eustace and the Paragon StratEx team, World View Enterprises, the commercial balloon spaceflight company, has acquired the technology from this history-making project. The acquisition will advance the company’s mission to pioneer a new frontier at the edge of space for travel and research.
“We’d like to congratulate Paragon Space Development Corporation® and its StratEx team along with Alan Eustace and all involved on their exceptional work,” said Taber MacCallum, World View’s chief technology officer, and Paragon’s founding CEO and CTO. “Without the efforts of these companies and Alan’s dedication, the project would not have been possible. World View is proud to carry the StratEx technology into the future by leveraging the incredible experience gained into a new era of space flights.”
For StratEx, Eustace was lifted to his peak altitude of 135,908 feet via high-altitude balloon, the same ballooning system that World View will employ to launch sailing-like journeys to the edge of space. While World View’s voyagers will ascend within a luxuriously engineered pressurized capsule, Eustace was kept safe from the elements in a self-contained space suit system designed with the goal of allowing manned exploration of the stratosphere above 100,000 feet. Paragon, which specializes in extreme environmental control systems, initiated the project with Eustace and worked with him to develop, build and manage the system used during the incredible space dive.
As former Paragon executives, World View founders Taber MacCallum and Jane Poynter played integral roles in the success of StratEx. MacCallum served as CEO and CTO of Paragon and played a key role in the development of the StratEx program, then transitioned to the critical role of chief safety officer, working with the team to ensure Eustace’s wellbeing. MacCallum will leverage this experience from the successful StratEx dive in his role as the chief technology officer for World View. Jane Poynter, World View’s CEO, served as the president and chairwoman of Paragon throughout the development of the StratEx program.
The patent-pending technology developed for StratEx has been acquired by World View for future space travel and research flights, adding depth to World View’s systems for launch, recovery, communications, ballooning, tracking, mission control, avionics and aerodynamics, among others.
World View will have Voyagers floating peacefully to the edge of space for a one-to-two-hour space cruise within a luxury capsule complete with bar and lavatory, which is transported by a parafoil and high-altitude balloon. Guests will enjoy 360-degree vistas of the world’s most spectacular panorama, marveling at the beauty of the Earth below, watching the sun slowly rise above the curvature of our planet suspended in a vast, black and infinite universe. They can even share the experience in real-time with loved ones thanks to in-flight Internet access.
Individuals who wish to be a pioneer in this exciting new era of space exploration can reserve their World View flight with a $5,000 deposit; the remaining $70,000 is due six months prior to their flight. Visit us to reserve.
In addition to offering breathtaking experiences for Voyagers, the capabilities being developed by World View will offer unprecedented and affordable access to the near-space environment for educators, researchers, private companies and government agencies alike.
World View has a number of strategic partners in this endeavor. Paragon Space Development Corporation® has decades of experience developing life support and space-related technologies. Paragon is leading the design and development of the World View space capsule. United Parachute Technologies, Performance Designs and MMIST, all leaders in pioneering parachute technology, are providing expertise and support for the development of the flight system’s airborne guidance unit and innovative parafoil.
About World View
Offering a gentle, comfortable, and life-changing travel experience to the edge of space for private citizens; and affordable access to a range of near-space commercialization opportunities for researchers, private companies and government agencies, World View is pioneering a new era of discovery at the edge of space. Available today for unmanned commercial opportunities with an altitude threshold of 130,000 feet, and currently taking reservations for manned flights and private tours, World View is creating unprecedented access to the near-space environment. Watch the World View experience here. For more information, visit http://www.worldviewexperience.com. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for real-time updates.
ABOUT PARAGON
Paragon Space Development Corporation® is a premier provider of environmental control components and systems for extreme and hazardous environments. As an industry leader in designing and manufacturing of thermal control and life support systems, Paragon provides solutions for its customer’s most challenging extreme environment protection needs in space, on Earth, in water and underground. Founded in 1993, Paragon is a small business headquartered in Tucson, Arizona. For more information on Paragon please click here.
Maybe I just hadn’t been paying attention, but this is the first that I’d heard they were planning to do this. It had nowhere near the hype that Red Bull did with Baumgartner. Of course, the latter was about branding, so it makes sense that they’d give it a lot of publicity.
Real panache would be to do it from a rocket with a clown cannon upper stage!
I got a job as a human cannonball once. I was fired the first night.
Perhaps you just weren’t a man of the right caliber for the job.
So how high is it possible to go? I’m assuming that the limiting factor would be how high you can get in a balloon. An aircraft or rocket would be prohibitively expensive because it would have to be a custom design, and I guess it would be very difficult to exit a fast-moving vehicle in extremely thin air without tumbling wildly out of control.
Much above the altitude he jumped, there is no “thin air.” A suborbital vehicle would be in vacuum and weightlessness for several minutes, plenty of time to open a hatch, climb out, and gently kick away from it. You’d probably want a little reaction-control system on the suit to enter with a good orientation.
How much frictional heating would one encounter during the freefall.?
That’s what I’m wondering. The balloon free-falls work because the hoist is all but stationary relative to the geography, whereas a heavy vehicle couldn’t stay aloft in near-vacuum without moving a good deal faster.
So the question is what percentage of orbital velocity (which as Rand pointed out previously is something like 71% of escape velocity) would the drop vehicle have to be traveling to maintain altitude at, say, 100 km?
At 100km altitude, the air is so thin you need to be moving at orbital velocity to generate enough lift to maintain altitude. That is why the Karman line is set at 100km.
You wouldn’t have to maintain altitude. You’d just have to go high enough above 100 km that you have sufficient time to prepare and jump when you get there. In theory (and practice — you’d have at least a couple minutes), you could even be ready to go, and push away at apogee.
But rand, what kind of a heat load do you get falling from 60 miles? You have to be multiple Mach by the time you hit the upper atmosphere.
Whatever it is, you could build a suit to handle it. It’s just that, at some point, it begs the question of what “suit” is versus a spacecraft. And in fact, a space suit could already be characterized as a very small, extremely tight-fitting spacecraft.
“You wouldn’t have to maintain altitude. You’d just have to go high enough above 100 km that you have sufficient time to prepare and jump when you get there. In theory (and practice — you’d have at least a couple minutes), you could even be ready to go, and push away at apogee.”
Or, you could bail out after engine cutoff and let your momentum carry you to your own apogee. You might become the first skydiver to fall upwards after separating from your plane. It’d give the rocket pilot more time to get his vehicle squared away before hitting the atmosphere, which is potentially dangerous. As for the heat loads, I don’t recall SpaceShipOne getting very hot during peak heat loads.
I wrote “maintain altitude” and hit Post before that implication bounced back at me. But yeah, separating from the ship right after engine cutoff was my next thought, especially if the lift trajectory was nearly vertical by then — though identifying the jumper’s ultimate apogee would require a radar lock or something.
Also, he might need a mechanical eject to get him far enough from the lift vehicle to be safe when the LV starts maneuvering for reentry. I considered an unmanned LV and just letting it fall, but if its lift trajectory is nearly vertical it would need to accelerate horizontally or else hit the ground nearly intact.
Ah, so just very expensive then. Of course, there would be a debate about how much of a control system you could add to the pressure suit before it had to be considered as a piloted vehicle, and therefore not skydiving anymore. That wouldn’t matter to people who were doing it for the thrill but it would become an issue with record claims.
Both Baumgartner’s and Eustace’s suits were functionally space suits, other than lacking RCS, because they had enough aerodynamic authority that it wasn’t necessary.
As for expense, I’d bet that today’s jump cost more than a Lynx flight will.
That’s a safe bet. Helium balloons large enough to lift someone that high are very expensive. I wonder if the canopy on a Lynx can be safely opened and closed in flight? Odds are, no, but that could be incorporated in the designs of later models. The suit stabilization RCS would be a good idea and not that difficult to implement.
This was the first I’d heard about it as well. The NYT article said he and his team planned the jump in secrecy.
Congratulations to Eustace. The more the merrier!
Decades ago NASA came up with a soft ball you rode inside from orbit but never tried. Terminal velocity was low enough to exit it and parachute the rest of the way. I remember reading about it in high school in the seventies.
Don’t forget MOOSE. Looks like fun.