Computer Scientist Parachutes From 135,908 Feet, Breaking Record 175
An anonymous reader writes: The NY Times reports that Alan Eustace, a computer scientist and senior VP at Google, has successfully broken the record for highest freefall jump, set by Felix Baumgartner in 2012. "For a little over two hours, the balloon ascended at speeds up to 1,600 feet per minute to an altitude of 135,908 feet, more than 25 miles. Mr. Eustace dangled underneath in a specially designed spacesuit with an elaborate life-support system. He returned to earth just 15 minutes after starting his fall. ... 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. ... His technical team had designed a carbon-fiber attachment that kept him from becoming entangled in the main parachute before it opened. About four-and-a-half minutes into his flight, he opened the main parachute and glided to a landing 70 miles from the launch site."
Where's Bennett? (Score:5, Funny)
Has Bennett Haselton certified this record-breaking feat? I will not believe these claims until he has written a lengthy blog post on how this feat relates to Burning Man ice queues and distributed social networks.
Re:Where's Bennett? (Score:5, Funny)
After graduation, Haselton worked on Visual Basic at Microsoft for seven months.
Yet another reason to hate him. Fuck. [wikipedia.org]
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I will not believe these claims until he has written a lengthy blog post on how this feat relates to Burning Man ice queues and distributed social networks.
Haselton earned a master's degree in mathematics from Vanderbilt University, and created and operates a significant First Amendment website. I'm sure you have similar credentials? Why don't you tell us about it?
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the dessert druggies.
mmm dessert drugs, you know, for after dinner. that would be epic.
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I'm with the parent. I've read the Wikipedia page, and your link to his /. submissions, and I'm not seeing why such vitriol is being flung (in multiple stories) about him. What, is he a faggot/fairy/LGBTt (???) or something and that offends you, or you're a spammer, a paedo, or you think Burning Man is Emo; or what?
FWIW, I'm with him on what I've read about his views on obscenity and nudity. How nakedness can be percieved as disorderly conduct escapes me. Sure, lots of people are fat slobs so I don't wa
And if the attempt failed... (Score:5, Funny)
He planned to go up and try it again.
That was quiet (Score:3)
Hadn't heard anything of this before today, I'll have to look for videos. I guess he didn't want to draw any attention.
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Instead, Mr. Eustace planned his jump in the utmost secrecy, working for almost three years...
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Hadn't heard anything of this before today, I'll have to look for videos. I guess he didn't want to draw any attention.
well the other guys needed to be publicity whores to raise the needed cash, but this guy just paid for it out of his own pocket.
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Hadn't heard anything of this before today, I'll have to look for videos. I guess he didn't want to draw any attention.
There was a video on the NYTimes site, but it was really short. And I just realized that the New York Times has one of the most irritating video players I have ever used.
Very Cool! (Score:2)
Being a computer scientist (Score:2)
Re:Being a computer scientist (Score:4, Funny)
131,072 feet, surely?
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Why 128,000? It isn't a power of 2 and it doesn't translate into any special hex or binary value so why else would that number have any special meaning for a computer scientist?
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131,072 feet would of been cooler...
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131,072 feet would HAVE been cooler...
The word "of" has no meaning in the context you typed it.
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The word "of" has no meaning in the context you typed it.
If he wanted your opinion, he'd axe for it.
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I could care less what you think. For all intensive purpose the two phrases are one in the same. Which begs the question, are you the type of person that would cut off your nose despite your face?
Irregardless, if you think you can extract revenge threw grammar nazi posts, you've got another think coming. I'll get off scott free!
(I know I know, each phrase is worse than the next).
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For all intensive purpose ...
"For all intents and purposes ...". WTF does "intensive purpose" mean?
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That's the only one that bothered you?
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*woosh*
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He's a Mac dude.
Ah. The light dawns (or something/sumfin).
Don't you twits have *anything* better to do? This is what you do for entertainment?
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131,072 feet would of been cooler...
131,072 feet would've been cooler ...
See contraction, of "would" plus "have". I realize we'll (we plus will) lose this battle, and I can live with it. Newspeak rulez!
Re:Being a computer scientist (Score:5, Funny)
it would have been cool if he would have jumped from 128,000 feet. ;)
That would only work if he was employed by Western Digital or Maxtor.
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Reading the entirely of the responses to your post I think it's pretty clear why he left the alligators in that particular swamp the hell alone.
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Wow, you have clearly never talked to a Google senior VP before.
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But he did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night.
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Ah. I see you wanted to share the very definition of "prejudice" with us by providing a clear example. Thank you.
Skydiving lesson (Score:5, Funny)
So this skydiving student goes on his first solo jump. When the plane gets up to altitude and over the target, he jumps. Falling to the proper altitude, he pulls the release on the main chute. Nothing.
Fighting back panic, he remembers what they taught in class and pulls the release on the backup chute. Nothing happens again. Things are starting to look pretty grim as he watches the ground rapidly approach.
Then, he notices a man, rising toward him from the ground. Odd, he thinks to himself. But what the hell ..... When this person gets within earshot, the skydiver yells, "Hey buddy! Do you know how to work a parachute?"
"No", the other person replies. "Do you know how to light a Coleman stove?"
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What's the difference between a bad golfer and a bad skydiver?
One goes WHAP! Damn!
The other goes DAMN! WHAP!!!!
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+1,000,005: caught me right out there
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WHOOOOOOOOSH!
Coleman stoves use white gas (or unleaded works fine), and gas is quite explosive under certain conditions.
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The whole situation fails to make sense to me. Not because a Coleman stove can't possibly create an explosion sufficient to launch a person to any appreciable altitude. Not because a pers
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Being a geek you used logic to try to understand the joke thus fucking it up.
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Being a geek you used logic to try to understand the joke thus fucking it up.
That, and they've never heard of artistic licence, nor willing suspension of disbelief. Probably shouldn't bother trying to write fiction. It'd read like a manpage, or worse.
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Are all skydiving jokes over your head?
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I doubt it. I think this joke dates back to WWII.
That's how we CS people roll (Score:5, Funny)
You can tell it was a REAL computer scientist because there was no "test first", just pure perfect action.
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You can tell it was a REAL computer scientist because there was no "test first", just pure perfect action.
I don't know about that. I heard he was caught in a catch loop for the first two hours until he managed to use a throw command.
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Re:That's how we CS people roll (Score:4, Funny)
CS people are raised on "Do or do not. There is not Try"
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Yikes! No, please. (go or die) or (go and die) = die.
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Annnnnd, joke fails due to logic error.
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Was that an AND joke? It appeared to be an OR joke to me, which historically are funny....or not!
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He said depending, so there are more terms (and more brackets) that he's not telling you about.
Not to be outdone (Score:5, Informative)
Vladimir Putin announced on Russian Times that he will jump from the Mir space station at an altitude of 300,000 kilometers to celebrate the upcoming 70th anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad.
Re:Not to be outdone (Score:5, Funny)
Vladimir Putin announced on Russian Times that he will jump from the Mir space station at an altitude of 300,000 kilometers to celebrate the upcoming 70th anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad.
Made even more of an awesome feat due to the fact that Mir had been de-orbited in 2001.
Re:Not to be outdone (Score:5, Funny)
Made even more of an awesome feat due to the fact that Mir had been de-orbited in 2001.
OP failed to mention that, to make the jump possible, Mr. Putin first plans to throw Mir back into orbit.
Re:Not to be outdone (Score:4, Funny)
And then he's going to do the jump bare-chested. Riding a bear.
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I hear he's challenged Chuck Norris to a biplane duel for the last leg.
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I don't think the mir is up that high. it's probably more like 400km, no? geosync must be about 50k km. The moon 1m km?
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MIR isn't that high currently since it was deorbited in March of 2001. Prior to that, it was at an altitude 364 km +/- 10km depending on where it was at in orbit.
Geostationary orbit is ~36,000 km from earth (radius ~42,164km). The moon is 384,000 km (+/- 21000 miles)
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close... earth radius is ~6,000km, not 40,000km!) Saturn is 50,000 km, Neptune is 25,00km.
Re: Not to be outdone (Score:2)
Right. The orbit is 36,000 km from the surface, or a radius of 42,000 km, a difference of...6,000km
He went up with just one single instruction... (Score:2)
Record (Score:4, Funny)
What's the record for EEs? I might have a shot at that.
Re:Record (Score:4, Funny)
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128,908 + 14,337j feet....
...just when I thought I was over the PTSD from my electrical networks class, the fetal position your joke induced demonstrates otherwise.
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Baumgartner took too much credit (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Baumgartner took too much credit (Score:5, Insightful)
What exactly are "the right reasons"?
I'm being serious. Is there some sort of "right" or "noble" reason to spend all this money jumping from slightly higher than the last guy who spent a lot of money?
Am I missing something here? Off the top of my head, the only reasons which come to mind are "extreme wealth" and "boredom".
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The right reason is: It was done for fun or curiosity.
Everything else is failure.
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The same reason there is for doing literally anything.
To woo women?
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So, what, you're suggesting he brought his army across the Alps on elephants for the publicity?
Was he wearing his Glasses (Score:1)
If he did this without wearing google glasses I'm going to be upset.
Re: Was he wearing his Glasses (Score:2)
He used a gopro. Very sensible choice.
Meh (Score:2)
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The ISS has significant relative lateral velocity. So far all these high dives have roughly 0 relative lateral velocity. The speed of orbit requires a heat-shield for re-entry. If you took a sounding rocket up to the height of the ISS, a good enough suit would certainly work, and probably wouldn't need any special materials, but you wouldn't want to get anywhere near the station. It would zip by in the blink of an eye. If it came close enough the visual could be terrifying, but it's doubtful you'd see it as
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Next record (Score:4, Funny)
The next record-breaking attempt will end badly with the man floating away into the emptiness of space.
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To an ever increasing portion of the population, everything is about politics.
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No altitude would cause bouncing into space, only velocity can cause that. In theory, you could go well past the moon's orbit (as long as the moon was on the other side) and fall to Earth. You'd gain so much speed in the vacuum that you'd burn up on re-entry like the rest of the meteors.
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now go read up on the inverse square law.
Correction on Altitude (Score:1)
From the News story - "Mr. Eustace’s maximum altitude was initially reported as 135,908 feet. The final number, based on information from two data loggers, being submitted to the World Air Sports Federation is 135,890 feet."
Guinness, not Geek (Score:4)
For the bizarre books that the former keep.
Nothing to do with geeks even if (and increasingly 'precisely because') it involves Google.
NOTHING in mainstream (Score:2)
...FB's jump was fucking everywhere.
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oh wait, this jump got a footnote on Channel 4 News tonight...
Frankly, I don't give a damn... (Score:1)
...unless this leads to the development of technology which has a "useful" use.
This could be for the hypothetical, and highly unlikely scenarios, where one knows a plane will fall apart in the next few minutes and the only hope for the passengers is to put on their high altitude parachute gear, jump, and hope for the best.
Spending ridiculous amounts of money breaking this record just to seek notoriety, is about as interesting as breaking the record for eating boiled eggs. (That just happened to be on the TV
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Or part of the development and testing process for a new generation space suit?
Imperial units (Score:1)
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How long would it take you to drive 135,908 feet?
How long would it take you to drive 25 miles?
I'd say the latter is easier to guess at than the former.
Seven word posts do not need a subject (Score:2)
JMP Considered Harmful (Score:2)
(...)
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It takes a dedicated conspiracist to declare how the elite are pulling the wool over our eyes at news of an incremental improvement in a record achievement.
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As they have no life to begin with, at least they won't lose much if things go wrong.