Felix Baumgartner No Big Deal

Maximus Alexander

Boringgggg...

opinion guy wrote: »

Oh....I'm sorry.....I'm just not as smart as you......please do explain it to little old me

:rolleyes:

I never claimed you weren't smart. I said I don't think you comprehend it.

Do your own research. A bit of reading will help you find the difference.

somefeen

30 years before the moon landing we were still in the era of biplanes. Landing on the moon was fairly mind blowing for that alone.
We've had space suits since the 60's, ballooons for **** knows how long and been jumping out of planes probably since WW1. This is humanity riding the bike with no hands whereas landing on the moon was landing on the ****ing moon.

GLaDOS

Not really, but nice to watch

It's nowhere near the level of the moon landing in fairness, but that shouldn't be used as a stick to beat it. How many human accomplishments can rival the moon landing really?

sbsquarepants

Not really, but nice to watch

Dempsey wrote: »

You think Red Bull came up with the idea to do the jump?! :pac:

I'm not sure who came up with the idea, but i'm sure if it was nasa or the military they wouldn't have asked for red bulls help, or that of some dare devil base jumper.
The fact that those two are involved puts it very much in the realm of a stunt, not a research project.

Dempsey

Yea, Its up there with events of 2012

sbsquarepants wrote: »

I'm not sure who came up with the idea, but i'm sure if it was nasa or the military they wouldn't have asked for red bulls help, or that of some dare devil base jumper.
The fact that those two are involved puts it very much in the realm of a stunt, not a research project.

They found a way to fund a very expensive technical excercise via Red Bull's marketing strategy, that doesnt mean its a long red bull ad. :rolleyes:

Felix Baumgartner first mooted the idea ~8 years ago and it snowballed from there. Anyone could have sponsored this thing, just so happened that Red Bull saw the potential for their brand like they do with many other events.

NASA & US military budgets are being reduced. Its not a critical test for either of them to be doing at this moment in time but they were interested enough in the project to want the data. Other organisations did too btw. Why conduct your own excercise when someone in the private sector is going to do it and will sell the data to anyone that wants it for a fraction of the cost to do it yourself?

Maybe its time you read up more about it tbh

twinytwo

nacimroc wrote: »

Joe Kittinger is a legend and always will be. He did it 50 years ago on a chair tied to a balloon when nobody knew what was going to happen. He only had to jump at that height because his right hand had frozen so bad he thought he would lose it because his ****ty suit burst. A real f**kin man!!!

That Felix idiot fell out of a pressurised contained with a suit worth millions after years of research, knowing exactly what would happen, safety gear so there was a small chance of dying all while moaning like a bitch! Well done for falling!!

The speed doesn't matter because the atmosphere is so thin, there is almost no resistance so the speed is all relative therefore doesn't really matter and the height difference is pittance in the grand scale.

Shame that idiot gets so much credit and wouldn't acknowledge Joe's work on the day properly!

Seriously??? you do realise that there was a whole lot more to the event than just his jump??? the fact that he went up in the pod and had the suit, was to not only keep him alive but provide researchers with what is once in a lifetime data. This data will have long lasting effects on how future suits, escape systems etc are designed and made

M cebee

twinytwo wrote: »

Seriously??? you do realise that there was a whole lot more to the event than just his jump??? the fact that he went up in the pod and had the suit, was to not only keep him alive but provide researchers with what is once in a lifetime data. This data will have long lasting effects on how future suits, escape systems etc are designed and made

you mean they're doing it again:)

Emeraldy Pebbles

Wibbs wrote: »

Nick or Joe didn't take hissy fits. He didn't decide to change the management of his team because it suited him, Nick or Joe didn't storm off and go away for months to get hypnotherapy and new age music fired at him because of anxiety.

I don't really see why any of this matters.

The One Who Knocks

Felix who?

nacimroc

Boringgggg...

twinytwo wrote: »

Seriously??? you do realise that there was a whole lot more to the event than just his jump??? the fact that he went up in the pod and had the suit, was to not only keep him alive but provide researchers with what is once in a lifetime data. This data will have long lasting effects on how future suits, escape systems etc are designed and made

Great balloon, lovely little pressurised pod, great cameras, suit etc etc. Felix........meh!! To be honest, Joe jumped 50 years ago and loads have done it since. I really think NASA couldn't care less about the data, but no harm having a look I think it the way they would look at it.

Watched a few doc's on this. Joe Kittinger actually thought he was suspended in space after he jumped. That's how unbelievable it was. They really had no idea what was going to happen. It wasn't until he seen the balloon disappearing he thought it was him that was moving. His hand had froozen and the blood was pooling for 60k feet onwards, but wouldn't tell anyone in case they scrubbed the mission. A real man!

Dempsey

Yea, Its up there with events of 2012

nacimroc wrote: »

Great balloon, lovely little pressurised pod, great cameras, suit etc etc. Felix........meh!! To be honest, Joe jumped 50 years ago and loads have done it since. I really think NASA couldn't care less about the data, but no harm having a look I think it the way they would look at it.

Watched a few doc's on this. Joe Kittinger actually thought he was suspended in space after he jumped. That's how unbelievable it was. They really had no idea what was going to happen. It wasn't until he seen the balloon disappearing he thought it was him that was moving. His hand had froozen and the blood was pooling for 60k feet onwards, but wouldn't tell anyone in case they scrubbed the mission. A real man!

If you can name someone besides Felix Baumgartner, i'll give you a cookie!

opinion guy

Yea, Its up there with events of 2012

M cebee wrote: »

you mean they're doing it again:)

The capsule is reusable and can go higher. I believe they intend to do higher jumps but limited the height of this one due to the many unknowns the higher you go. I think the plan is to do a series of higher and higher jumps.

To those passing it off as a red bull stunt - the future of space exploration will need private enterprise - get used to it.

bluecode

Not really, but nice to watch

Amazing how many keyboard heroes are unimpressed with this feat. Maybe someone should organise a Board tandem skydive event and see how many of you would volunteer to jump from a mere 10,000 feet? Not many I think. No it's much easier to sit at home and click away on a keyboard.

Mostly it demonstrates how clueless some of you are. Apparently having no idea of just how much you must suppress the fear before something like that. Baumgartner could have died very easily indeed as he well knew. To the point he almost walked away. Skydivers die regularly doing simple jumps being one Baumgartner knew as well as anyone. The technology could have failed. The suit could have failed and his blood boiled in his body. The list of potential failures is long. But of course keyboard warriors don't have to worry to much about stuff like that.

In terms of it's impressiveness? It's not up there with the moon landings. But other than a trip to Mars what can top them?

The only thing I find disappointing about it is that after all these years of advances in space. That's the best we can do.

Maximus Alexander

Boringgggg...

bluecode wrote: »

Amazing how many keyboard heroes are unimpressed with this feat. Maybe someone should organise a Board tandem skydive event and see how many of you would volunteer to jump from a mere 10,000 feet? Not many I think. No it's much easier to sit at home and click away on a keyboard.

Look, you really shouldn't bother chatting on an internet message board if this is the kind of contempt that you hold for the opinions of the people you're speaking to.

Do you speak like that to your mates in the pub when they don't agree with you? "Ah sure you're all a load of barstool heroes, what would you know about the financial crisis". Piss off, quite frankly.

I have done skydiving from 14,000 ft, it was great craic. Not that that has anything to do with the topic at hand.

anncoates

Boringgggg...

It was brave and very entertaining but hardly on a par with the moon landing but what is?

Wibbs

Boringgggg...

opinion guy wrote: »

To me - it was awe-inspiring landing on the moon level stuff.

No. It really really wasn't. Getting into orbit is no small potatoes, only a few nations have managed it, the Chinese folks the latest and even there they were running Soviet stuff. Going to the moon is of a magnitude bigger a leap. It's incredibly difficult. The Chinese reckon they're gonna have a go. I wish them the best of luck, but they're gonna have to come up with new vehicles and systems, not Soviet copies, so I hope they do it, but I'm not holding my breath. A Mars shot for anyone is another equal jump in magnitude.

What would I put as similar to the moon shots? Funny enough, Concorde. Designing and building a supersonic passenger plane that could run daily scheduled services for over 30 years with only one crash was an incredible achievement. Doubly so in the 1960's. Indeed a straw poll of the Apollo techie guys marked it out as the project that really impressed them.

twinytwo wrote: »

This data will have long lasting effects on how future suits, escape systems etc are designed and made

Not really. The suit is remarkably "old" tech, still based on 1960's designs and still hand made by seamstresses, just like the Apollo suits. Indeed before LOL became interweb currency as an abbreviation, it was used by the Apollo guys as a term of endearment for the seamstresses that built the suits(and built the wire programs for the computers) LOL = Little Old Ladies.

Value for escape systems? Pretty minimal. Maybe for ejections from very high altitude aircraft, but not from spacecraft leaving the planet or coming back. In both cases any egress is gonna be around 7 miles per second. Ever stick your hand out of a car window at 60Mph? Sure the atmosphere is massively less dense up there, but 7 miles a second tends to more than make up for it. The shuttle hit the thin air at mach 25 and the external surfaces hit over 1500 degrees c. Game over ejecting into that. Either way the spam in a can is better off staying in the can and riding it out until orbit is reached or lower altitudes and speeds are reached.

Emeraldy Pebbles wrote: »

I don't really see why any of this matters.

Me I prefer my heroes(male and female) less new age and touchy feely.

Dempsey wrote: »

If you can name someone besides Felix Baumgartner, i'll give you a cookie!

Extreme altitude parachute jumps? Eugene Andreyev and Joseph Kittinger(Joe actually made three such high altitude jumps). Another guy Captain Jon Little ejected from his U2 spyplane when things went Pete Tong at over 50,000 feet. The effects of high altitude jumps are pretty well known. The one thing that Felix explored was breaking the sound barrier in freefall. Throw in Captain John Stapp for more high altitude and massively high G tests to check out high altitude and speed. safety systems. John a military man and a scientist did hundreds of tests, including insisting on not using dummies as they wouldnt give decent data and strapping himself to a rocket sled and pulling 46 G's deceleration for his trouble. Oh and while he was at it he flew in a plane at 600 mph without a canopy to check out how much windblast a human could take. He made huge strides in ejection safety systems and high altitude data. Then again maybe he wasn't such a good average example as clearly he was hard as fook.

Like I said I have huge respect for Felix' previous stuff, like the mad base jumps and freefalling across the English channel strapped to a carbon fibre wing yoke.

Dempsey

Yea, Its up there with events of 2012

You are clutching at straws with those comparisons. It was said loads of people did what Joe did since he first did it. That was a lie.

Teyla Emmagan

I got hammered on the original thread for saying the jump wasn't all that. How come it's alright now?

Huh.

nacimroc

Boringgggg...

Dempsey wrote: »

You are clutching at straws with those comparisons. It was said loads of people did what Joe did since he first did it. That was a lie.

Not to mention Yuri Gagarin who did it from only 7km up. Colonel Pyotr Dolgov was another. Ivan Kachur and Alexey Grachov were 2 more. Wibbs gave you 5 more. Nobodies lying. Your proved wrong. So enough with the moaning.

Dempsey

Yea, Its up there with events of 2012

nacimroc wrote: »

Not to mention Yuri Gagarin who did it from only 7km up. Colonel Pyotr Dolgov was another. Wibbs gave you 5 more. Nobodies lying. Your proved wrong. So enough with the moaning.

LOL, clutching at straws! Joe Kittinger did his jump at @ 31km+! Nobody did jumps at that altitude and survived until Felix Baumgartner. You are talking about jumps that dont have near the same risks. :rolleyes:

nacimroc

Boringgggg...

Dempsey wrote: »

LOL, clutching at straws! Joe Kittinger did his jump at @ 31km+! Nobody did jumps at that altitude and survived until Felix Baumgartner. You are talking about jumps that dont have near the same risks. :rolleyes:

"Dolgov, testing an experimental pressure suit, jumped at 28,640 meters (93,970 ft)"

You will probably start arguing about 29km versus 31km now so I'm going to stop feeding you!

Dempsey

Yea, Its up there with events of 2012

nacimroc wrote: »

"Dolgov, testing an experimental pressure suit, jumped at 28,640 meters (93,970 ft)"

You will probably start arguing about 29km versus 31km now so I'm going to stop feeding you!

Here's a cookie but the statement that "loads did it since" is clearly false.

LuckyLloyd

Not really, but nice to watch

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Dude does a free fall from the stratosphere and breaks the speed of sound on the way down. People on the Internet go 'meh'. Good lads.

Best thing I've ever read.

opinion guy

Yea, Its up there with events of 2012

Wibbs wrote: »

No. It really really wasn't. Getting into orbit is no small potatoes, only a few nations have managed it, the Chinese folks the latest and even there they were running Soviet stuff. Going to the moon is of a magnitude bigger a leap. It's incredibly difficult. The Chinese reckon they're gonna have a go. I wish them the best of luck, but they're gonna have to come up with new vehicles and systems, not Soviet copies, so I hope they do it, but I'm not holding my breath. A Mars shot for anyone is another equal jump in magnitude.

Wibbs I don't for a minute think it is equivalent to the moon landings as a technical achievement, but in terms of an event, a moment in history where everyone stood still and watched with open mouth - its up there for me. Now bear in mind, I wasn't alive for the moon landings, there wasn't the same media then, and most any other things on the scale that have happened in recent years have been negative - 9/11 etc, I do think that with was a marvelous positive spectacle in the same league as the moon landing - the bottom end of the league for sure, but still in the same ball park.

I do think that this was largely a positive thing - in sharp contrast to all the negativity we usually get, is a big part of why people find it an amazing event. You could argue the Olympics had that too - but it was different - a much more spread out event with lots of main characters. This was 4 minutes where millions if not billions of people watched one guy do something and were cheering for him. THAT does not happen very often (hell, has the ever happened before on such a scale ?)

Wibbs

Boringgggg...

opinion guy wrote: »

Wibbs I don't for a minute think it is equivalent to the moon landings as a technical achievement, but in terms of an event, a moment in history where everyone stood still and watched with open mouth - its up there for me.

"Everyone" didn't save for in Nerdland. Naturally I watched myself being a citizen of same, but worldwide on general media not so much(see below).

I do think that this was largely a positive thing - in sharp contrast to all the negativity we usually get, is a big part of why people find it an amazing event.

Oh certainly. It's not a negative by any stretch.

This was 4 minutes where millions if not billions of people watched one guy do something and were cheering for him. THAT does not happen very often (hell, has the ever happened before on such a scale ?)

Not even close to billions, rather 8 million in cybermedia and maybe that again on TV. More people watch Coronation street(sad to say). Indeed the linked article notes "more people in the U.K. alone were watching Downton Abbey than were watching Felix worldwide". Viewing figures on that scale happen every other week for crap like bloody X factor. Moon landings? 500 million worldwide(in the middle of the night for half the wolrd and the Soviet bloc didn't watch at all). Hell, for the beatles singing "all you need is love" Our World broadcast 400 million tuned in. Elvis singing from Hawaii garnered near a billion(scary).

Tayla

Funglegunk wrote: »

I was only mildly interested in the jump in the same way I would watch an F1 race hoping for some crashes. Soon after sitting down to watch it though, I was glued to the screen. Probably the most riveting, exciting piece of live television I've ever watched.

I didn't hear about it until the day it was on but I thought it was riveting too, It didn't beat the Chilean miners rescue for me though which I watched from start to finish, it was really amazing to watch them all being rescued.

ken wrote: »

I recall them saying during Felix's event that the husband of one of the challenger women had helped in the design of the suit Felix wore.

Baumgartners medical director was the husband of Laurel Clark who died in the Columbia disaster.

Emeraldy Pebbles

Wibbs wrote: »

Me I prefer my heroes(male and female) less new age and touchy feely.

Suit yourself. I don't care if people I admire have some less than admirable qualities. They're people. Not sure why you felt the need to add the (male or female) bit - what's the relevancy?

Anyway, he doesn't seem to be a hero of yours which makes your criticism of his character even odder.