Live and direct. He's going down!

[Gob]

Supersonic skydiver Felix Baumgartner was faster than he or anyone else thought during his record-setting jump last October from 38 kilometres up.

The Austrian parachutist known as "Fearless Felix" reached 1357.6 km/h, according to official numbers. That's equivalent to Mach 1.25, or 1.25 times the speed of sound.

His top speed was initially estimated at 16 km/h slower at 1342 km/h, or Mach 1.24.

Either way, he became the first human to break the sound barrier with only his body. He wore a pressurised suit and hopped from a capsule hoisted by a giant helium balloon over New Mexico.

Baumgartner was supersonic for a half-minute – "quite remarkable", according to Brian Utley, the record-keeping official who was present for the October 14 feat.

The 43-year-old's heart rate remained below 185 beats a minute, and his breathing was fairly steady.

The leap was from an altitude of 127,852 feet. That's 248 feet lower than original estimates, but still stratospheric.

"He jumped from a little bit lower, but he actually went a little bit faster, which was pretty exciting," said Art Thompson, technical project director for the Red Bull-sponsored project.

"It's fun for us to see reaching Mach speeds and proving out a lot of the safety systems," Thompson said at his aerospace company in Lancaster, California.

Thompson said everything pretty much unfolded as anticipated, with no big surprises in the final report. The updated records were provided by Utley, official observer for the US National Aeronautic Association's contest and records board. Utley was in Roswell, New Mexico, for Baumgartner's grand finale following two test jumps.

Based on all the data collected from sensors on Baumgartner's suit, Utley determined that Baumgartner was 34 seconds into his jump when he reached Mach 1. The speed for breaking the sound barrier depends on the temperature at a given altitude; for Baumgartner that came together just shy of 110,000 feet.

He reached peak speed by the time he was at 91,300 feet, 50 seconds into the jump, and was back to subsonic by 75,300 feet, give or take, 64 seconds into his free fall.

His entire free fall lasted four minutes, 20 seconds. He used a parachute to cover the final 5000 feet, landing on his feet in the desert outside Roswell.

[Econoline]

Mach schnell!

Mach 1.25 Schneller!

[Gob]

One of Google's most senior executive's has broken Felix Baumgartner's record for the highest parachute jump in history.



Alan Eustace, 57, a senior vice president of Knowledge at Google, was this morning lifted by a balloon filled with 35,000 cubic feet of helium, from an abandoned runway at an airport in New Mexico.

A well-known computer scientist, he fell faster than the speed of sound and broke Baumgartner's world altitude record set just two years ago by jumping from 135,000 feet.

He returned to earth just 15 minutes after starting his fall.

'It was amazing,' he told the New York Times.

'It was beautiful.

'You could see the darkness of space and you could see the layers of atmosphere, which I had never seen before.'

Mr. Eustace cut himself loose from the balloon with the aid of a small explosive device and plummeted toward the earth at a speeds that peaked at more than 800 miles per hour, setting off a small sonic boom heard by observers on the ground.

'It was a wild, wild ride,' he said. 'I hugged on to the equipment module and tucked my legs and I held my heading.'

Eustace broke several records, including national record for highest exit altitude; world and national record for free fall under a drogue chute; national record for vertical speed.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Me next!!!