He did it: Redbull Stratos jump!

http://www.redbullstratos.com/live/
^ live stream there.

in short: crazy man is going to jump 120k feet/36km, just on the border of earths atmosphere.
they are currently rolling out the balloon.

I searched for a thread, no results.

edit: he reached 39 kilometers and a maximum speed of 1172 kmph, which is around 720mph(help here).

It's starting!

Hope it ends well.


Edit: Mission Aborted?

I heard about this on the radio, he wants to break the sound barrier or something

edit: 36.5km skydive attempt aborted because of high winds in New Mexico.

Oh god, the past few days has been the craziest. Some guy trying to have that lightning thing through the body thing with chainmail and stuff and this.

So uh... I'm watching this live on TV. Anyone else?

So uh... I'm watching this live on TV. Anyone else?

Me too!

Live update: nothing has happened.

edit: it's been an hour. NOTHING HAS HAPPENED

Only 4k more feets until he jumps.

Noooo the vid doesn't work, hope everything turn out fine

He jumped and landed; free fall for 4:19

Just found out about this. turned it on, he already landed

Sucks to be me.

So he reached 729mph, is that mach?

So he reached 729mph, is that mach?

Close, mach 1 is 768mph.

Close, mach 1 is 768mph.

But the higher up you are, the slower sound moves compared to down here at sea level. I'm not sure if he reached Mach 1.
Would require the speed of sound to have been 729 mph where he reached that speed himself.

Apparently he reached 833mph, which is over mach 1.

833.9 mph, Mach 1.24.

only crazy white people will do this pomegranate.

only crazy white people will do this pomegranate.

Asians genetials are too small to attempt this sh`it.

I've done some calculations and it's impossible for him to have reached even Mach 1.

Assuming constant gravitational acceleration (it varies from 9.81m²/s at sea level to 9.69m²/s at the start of his jump) and no friction.
He fell 119846ft (from 128000ft to 8154ft) in 4min19s = 259seconds.

So his average speed during the fall is Vavg = 36529m/259s = 141.04 m/s

His acceleration during fall is something of the form:
a = C - f(V), where f(V) is an always positive and monotonically increasing function of V that never exceeds C.

By that we can see that v(t) is a monotonically increasing, concave function (its first derivative is positive and its second derivative is negative).

Having that, the highest maximum velocity he could have had at the end of 259 seconds would be if his speed profile, v(t) was a straight line (no friction).
That velocity would be 2*Vavg = 242.08m/s or Mach 0.82
QED

Adding friction to the equation only lowers his maximum speed.

Disclaimer: This doesn't take away from the rest of the records he broke.