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[Live Forever]

Here is the link to the story over at Space.com about a 62 year old Frech guy by the name of Michel Fournier that will be attempting to break the record for the world's highest skydive. He will travel up in a balloon attached to a capsule to free fall from a height of about 130,000 feet (40 kilometers or about 25 miles) above the Earth.

I have seen video on TV before of when the current record holder Captain Joseph Kittinger jumped from a height of 102,800 feet (31,334 meters) in 1960, and it looked like he was in space (it was all dark) and you could see the curvature of the Earth below and stuff. They said that the air is so thing up there that it doesn't even feel like you are falling, because you can not feel the air passing you by.

In any event, this newest guy will break the sound barrier on the way down, he will be traveling so fast.



Capsule he will be in. He will be in a specially designed suit, and have plenty of oxygen bottles.



Practice inflation of his balloon.

[spins]

Yeah I've seen a few documentaries about the current world record holder; apparently he also broke the sound barrier during his decent. Although in interviews after the jump he said he didn't realise he was falling so fast because he had absolutely no sensation of falling, it was only when he rolled on his back he saw the balloon flying away at a huge rate of knots.

I suppose Michel Fournier could be classed as the ultimate thrill seeker and or an absolute nutter! [lol]

[Live Forever]

Yeah I've seen a few documentaries about the current world record holder; apparently he also broke the sound barrier during his decent. Although in interviews after the jump he said he didn't realise he was falling so fast because he had absolutely no sensation of falling, it was only when he rolled on his back he saw the balloon flying away at a huge rate of knots.

I suppose Michel Fournier could be classed as the ultimate thrill seeker and or an absolute nutter! [lol]

I think I saw one of those documentaries too. At one point he said something about how for a moment he thought he was just floating up there and not falling, and might float out into space or something, because he couldn't feel the air (being so thin and all) passing by him as he went down. The old world record is 102,800 feet, so this new guy is going to be going almost 30,000 feet above that! (almost 30% higher) Astonishing.