Many thanks to XanderW for this pupil post about Red Bull Stratos. There are more like it on the way,
Red Bull Stratos was the mission in which the Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner would break the skydiving record, jumping from a height of 23.4 miles (38.6 km). The jump took place on the 14th October 2012 over New Mexico. Felix went up in a helium balloon then fell approximately 127,852.4 feet (39,969.4 m), beating the previous record of 102,800 feet (31,300 m) set by Joseph Kittinger.
“I know the whole world is watching now. I wish you could see what I can see. Sometimes you have to be up really high to understand how small you are… I’m coming home now.”
Those were the words Felix said before he left the capsule and started his free fall. After 42 seconds of free fall he reached his maximum velocity of 843.6 mph (1,357.6 kph: Mach 1.25) and started to spin uncontrollably. He leveled out at the 83rd second of the descent. His goggles started to fog up and he was getting worried, so he deployed his parachute at the 4 minute 20 second mark. After 9 minutes 18 seconds he landed on the ground in New Mexico, fell to his knees and punched the air.
He was the first person to break the speed of sound without the protection or propulsion of a vehicle, it was the highest ever parachute jump, the longest ever free fall and the highest manned balloon flight. It was all viewed by millions on the Internet, on television and from the ground in New Mexico. It was even viewed live by three OS Wykehamists as can be seen from the comments below this brief post.
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There are a couple of posts related to this topic which can be found here, here, and here. I recommend you read them too.
Questions…
- What equation links speed, distance and time?
- What force brought him to the ground?
- When he was travelling at terminal velocity, what can you say about (a) the size of the air resistance force acting on him and (b) his weight?
- Why could he achieve a higher terminal velocity in the high atmosphere than when falling closer to Earth?
- He was in free fall for 160 seconds, falling a total of 36,529 metres in that time. What was his average speed during free fall?
- What was his average speed for the whole jump?
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