Red Bull Stratos 36.5km, 1,100km/h free-fall Tues night

[gary]

The countdown is currently 3 days, 7 hours, 45 minutes to Felix Baumgartner's
record breaking free-fall attempt, which should correspond to Tuesday night
here in Australia.

Baumgartner plans to jump from a balloon from 35.5km and free-fall head-first
in a space suit to become the first human to accelerate through the speed of
sound without the protection of a vehicle.

The mission, known as the Red Bull Stratos, will include live video streaming from
35 cameras. On hand and acting as mentor to Baumgartner is 83-year-old
Joe Kittinger who jumped from 31.3km 52 years ago. Kittinger is officially
acting as flight operations manager and Baumgartner and the Stratos team plan
to break Kittinger's 1960 records for the highest and longest free-fall and highest manned
balloon flight.

More information is available here on the official Stratos mission web site -
http://www.redbullstratos.com/

[Ric]

Thanks for the link Gary

That's definitely one to watch on Tuesday night.

[MrB (Simon)]

That will be awesome to watch.
Very fortunate that it will be during our night, saves me trying to watch it on the sly at work

[michaellxv (Michael)]

There's a program on 7Mate tonight about it.

[gary]

If missing the last step on the ladder when coming down from the eyepiece gives
you a little fright, well that's nothing!

10 hours and counting down.

Weather predicted to be clear at Roswell with winds at 2.4km/h.

Live video coverage will be here -
http://www.redbullstratos.com/live/

[GrahamL]

I recall watching some of the earlier attempts , thinking thats so high you could miss a continent

[Octane (Humayun)]

This is going to be amazing.

Been waiting for this since I saw him on TED.

H

[scagman (John)]

Will be great to see. Hope he can brake the sound barrier.

Live coverage on CH73 Mate. @ 23:15.

Enjoy.

[gary]

Originally Posted by scagman

Will be great to see. Hope he can brake the sound barrier.

Live coverage on CH73 Mate. @ 23:15.

Enjoy.

Thanks for the heads-up that it will be on free to air television as well.

The ascent is estimated to take "less than 3 hours". Once the "clear to jump"
go ahead is given, Baumgartner will depressurize the capsule, detach his hoses and
then jump head down.

[gary]

A little over an hour to the live broadcast.

Whilst waiting ...

Here is the original article that appeared in the November 1960 National Geographic
by Capt. Joseph W. Kittinger, Jr., USAF of his record making jump -
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...ydive-science/

[gary]

Weather hold. Earliest launch 13:30 UTC (00:30 AEDT - NSW, VIC).

[Octane (Humayun)]

Ugh. We're going to be up all night.

H

[MrB (Simon)]

Yeah I was up all night working last night, dunno if I can do it again

[Octane (Humayun)]

I'll watch the repeats later. Need sleep!

H

[MrB (Simon)]

Just saw a ticker-tape message scroll across the bottom of the screen on 7Mate... 4:30am AEDT, bah.
Bed time for me now.

[Octane (Humayun)]

Lame.

Cheers, Simon.

H

[ourkind (Carlos)]

After lenghty delays the winds have died down and they've begun to lay out the balloon ...

[Octane (Humayun)]

It starts in 3 minutes.

H

[Octane (Humayun)]

Aborted.

Wind picked up.

H

[ourkind (Carlos)]

Wow the balloon is spent ... sensitive stuff hey?