Reaching speed of sound without an aircraft

**Patch** · 16th March 2008, 08:04

Now this takes massive balls of steel

Interesting read as well, similar topic

Wonder how much they'd charge to make a jump like that

**homer** · 16th March 2008, 08:17

Yes ive seen the doco
quite amazing actually
He was at asomething like 104 000 feet ,the edge of space

**YellowDog** · 16th March 2008, 08:37

Amazing. I wouldn't have thought the human body could survive such an ordeal and not combust. I guess he was between the atmosphere re-entry and the climate itself so the air was so thin that he was not exposed to the atmospheric pressures and when he was, he opened his parachute to slow himself down. You don't want to get that manouver wrong!

**Swoop** · 16th March 2008, 09:25

The guy is Joe Kittinger and he is a bloody good bloke as well.
Not just the one jump either.

There is another attempt underway in Canada to beat his record.
The attempt was abandoned last summer due to a leak in the balloon, but this year... so long as the weather conditions are exactly right.

Supersonic is easy, due to the lack of air resistance. You slow down naturally due to the increasing resistance. IIRC Joe opened his parachute at 18,000ft.