The highest/mach1freefall jump is set for today

Very impressive!! a shame he didn't break the "free-fall" record, i wonder when he will try again (mentalist)

 

Wow. The image of him jumping was awesome. Not sure if he broke mach. Thought he was just under.

 

Thats it we can breath again now.

Don't know why he let the ol'boy do the comms - he was bloody useless

 

at one point I though he was only 1mph short at 739mph, I know it varies at altitude.

when he started badly tumbling at the begining I thought he was a gonna.

Very impressed with those NASA telescopes though

 

Looking forward to the BBC documentary. Should be good christmas viewing!

 

"Sometimes you have to be up really high, to see how small you are."

 

Was awesome, one of the best things i've ever seen live, made me think what it must have been like for the moon landing!

My heart dropped bit when he stepped off! Was amazing to think there he was in New Mexico falling at 700mph while I was here sat with laptop watching it. Technology is incredible!

*Mind Blown*

 

They won't confirm the freefall as a record.... they're convinced Suarez has gone further!

 

indeed his was about 30 seconds longer. mind you this attempt was also for the mach 1 record - so would have tried to steamline himself as much as possible, so probably Suarez would have fallen much slower

 

Oh, dear Bailey! Past your bed time!

 

Though, kind of glad Kittinger still has one of the records. To do that in the early 60's pre-Apollo and at the start of the jet-age is deserving of it.

 

Mach 1.24. Bloody amazing!

 

Cheers for that, I couldn't find it confirmed anywhere.

Not sure if I understand the bedtime comment ? NOPE I think I got it - shows you I don't watch or follow football, I thought that was one of the other record holders DUHH..

 

There would have been a Slight pressure wave - but with very little atmosphere, I think that minimises any sort of sound - "NO body Can hear you scream in Space" either

As Ripley said in Aliens - well the marketing men said

 

I watched this live here on Rhodes (in the pub), but I was a bit baffled when the screen readout said it was only -7.5 degrees at 128,000 feet. I mean, from my own commando days i know its -35 at 40,000 feet. Amazing though, hats off to the guy. It just said on BBC world maximum speed of 840mph.

 

Wot he said... he broke it while in the stratosphere (in the first 30s or so) where the air presure is minimal, and not being a streamlined object would have dissipated any pressure wave... flapping arms wouldn't have helped!

 

Aagean, It was pointed out that -as the air gets much thinner' The Suns direct heat has more of an effect, so the variations went to -56c then back up as he went higher. In fact one of the comments he made on the way down (after about 2 minutes) was "It's getting very Cold now"

I must say it was the constant changes in speed of Ascent, that got me. I know they dropped ballast and vented the balloon but, that didn't acccount for all the variations. I was wondering was it because of the folds dropping out of the Balloon, making the concentration of gas vary. Obviously the suns heat would have had an effect on the expansion (as well as the falling pressure) as he got higher, but it seemed to be up and down like a yoyo

 

There was an excellent explanation on the BBC weather website today. Looks like it's gone now. Theres a gradient of temperature in the stratosphere of about -20c -> -70c -> -2c (ish). The top layer gets more uv radiation generating ozone the process of which generates heat.

 

There's been a few negative tweets about this event, yet when you think all the pluses..I wonder how many people got a real education on our planets "little ring of protection" and just how amazingly narrow it really is. I certainly did.

It's one thing watching a space ship ascend and not really having any sense of relating to it. Yet when A guy goes-up in a balloon to a distance equal to a "Marathon run" and at about the same pace it's enlightening to realise just how short a distance this really is before your in a dangerous Zone.

Millions of people (probably hundreds of million) got a real insight yesterday - thats a big payback for one mans risk