Frenchman Plummeting 25 Miles From The Sky Will Break Sound Barrier
Michel Fournier is about to make the greatest leap of his, and anyone else’s, life. On Sunday, the 64-year-old retired French army officer will fly almost 25 miles into the sky in a giant balloon, step out of a pressurized capsule and plunge headfirst towards the earth, soaring through the atmosphere for an estimated 15 minutes.
A lot can go wrong when you’re trying to reach 130,000 feet up in the air. At above 40,000 feet, there’s no longer enough oxygen to breathe. At 12 miles up, the air pressure can cause blood to boil. Fournier will be taking the trip in a special space suit, but if it malfunctions, he’ll be dead within seconds.
If he makes it, Fournier will set records for falling the longest, farthest and fastest of anyone in history. The fall will be the cumulation of 20 years of research and physical and emotional preparation. To pay for his training and equipment, Fournier has sold almost all his belongings and spent roughly $20 million, mostly raised from private donations.
*update: The second attempt will be in August and please subscribe this page for the updates for this story.
May 27th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
I guess my only real question is….Why?
I mean wtf good will this jump, his 20 million and all the effort actually do for anyone?
May 27th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
One mile is not equal to one kilometer.
25 kilometers is about 15 1/2 miles, which is still quite impressive as well as more accurate.
May 27th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
The balloon left with him. Oh well, say la vie!!
May 27th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Err…
Unfortunately today he FAILED in his attempt.
Hilariously, his balloon set off without him! The last I saw of him was a very dejected Frenchman in a dayglo yellow suit heading back to the car, and a balloon rising slowly into the sky.
May 27th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Been done before …
May 27th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
er, no he wont. his balloon took off without him.
Lolz L2pioneer the upper atmosphere. noob.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1021956/Skydivers-130-000ft-space-plunge-foiled—giant-balloon-floats-him.html
May 27th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
yeah go canada, saskatchewan, and saskatoon
May 27th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
i’ll be rootin’ for ya.
May 27th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
I don’t get this; I thought the height didn’t matter - he still has a terminal velocity. Is it something to do with the air being thinner at 25 miles up so posing less resistance (ie. his terminal velocity will be higher)
James’s last blog post..Installing Wordpress on Ubuntu 7.10
May 27th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
haha, Turns out that the Frenchman lost his balloon! No freefalling for him! Waste of 20 million too…
May 27th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Too bad the baloon left without him
May 27th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Ummm, I think the idea is to be attached to the balloon when it goes up.
May 27th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
This sadly failed, the balloon he was using to lift himself up detached from his capsule as it was filling up with the helium. The balloon floated away leaving him with nothing to raise him up into the atmosphere (Tuesday may 27)
May 27th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
I’m sure he will done it again..in theory, it will but for the reality, I don’t think so..but his attempt does prove he had a steel ball.
May 27th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
I’m pretty sure there’s something called “terminal velocity” anyway, so there’s no way in hell he would have gone over 1000 mph.
actually, depending on his position, his top speed would be about 124 mph (200 kph)
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/JianHuang.shtml
May 27th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Yep..currently I’m doubt he will gone over 1000 Mph, but anything will do with the suitcase.In theory maybe..Unless he will jump again and prove it to the world.
May 27th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Hey Carl,
As I’m sure you know, terminal velocity is a function of gravitational acceleration and friction or wind resistance. At high altitudes, lets say 110,000 feet, the atmosphere is much, much thinner. This results in a higher velocity to achieve the required frictional force to balance the force equation and bring this silly frenchmen to a zero acceleration point. In other words the higher the altitude the higher the terminal velocity. This is the same reason why airplanes cannot straight up into space, the need air to create lift. High altitudes means no air. Instead of sleeping through high school physics, or daydreaming about world of war craft, you should have taken some notes and done your homework.
May 27th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Haha, a funny demise…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7421641.stm
Ben’s last blog post..Day 429 - 27th May 2008
May 27th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Great explanation Willy..Thanks..
May 27th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Can’t we just take all Frenchmen up to that altitude and drop them?
May 27th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Sean: It would not be nice but anyway, then we can get tied with their chicks..
May 27th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Didn’t Captain Joseph Kittinger do this back in the 1950’s?
May 27th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
SuperSparky: Yes..and he jumps at 102,800 feet (31,330 m).
May 28th, 2008 at 12:26 am
Well you see RendeR, you obviously have not been skydiving. Skydiving is like heroin. Once you try it your an addict. I’m the most jealous person in the world right now. Knowing he will be free falling for 7 minutes. This is probably his dream and he will be able to accomplish it. What are your goals and life? Have fun with your family and kids and office job when you grow up rather then doing what you like.
May 28th, 2008 at 1:11 am
(French dude at 130,000 feet) “Ahh… crap the capsule won’t open”
Wouldn’t have to have a casket… or dig a hole to put it in…
Really though, this sounds like it would be awesome to try, I personally think it would be a hell of a lot funnier if he did it in a porta-potty rather than this high tech space resistant ultra expensive capsule of complete uselessness.
May 28th, 2008 at 1:23 am
Figure it for yourselves.
grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/termv.html
Assuming a cross section of 3 sq/ft (assuming he’s facing down) and a cd of .6 he can make well over mach 2 at 130000′
May 28th, 2008 at 1:44 am
What a complete jackass! Ultimate FAIL!
May 28th, 2008 at 4:42 am
Doesn’t the fact that he will be constantly losing altitude need to factor into the equation? I guess what I’m really asking is how long will he be traveling through altitudes devoid enough of air to allow him to reach super sonic speeds? I imagine that he will be accelerating rather quickly, however it seems plausible that accelerating too quickly might allow air resistance to take effect before he reached his desired speed. I am not a physicist, nor a mathematician, so theres a good chance i don’t know what I’m talking about. It just seems to me that there are a few variables left unaccounted for.
May 28th, 2008 at 5:18 am
FAIL!!!!!
Lucky for him though, I’m not sure what breaking the sound barrier and then slowing down as the atmosphere thickens again does to the human body. He probably would have lost his life if his balloon hadn’t detached from the capsule when they filled it up.
People who can’t even properly secure a balloon to a capsule shouldn’t attempt stuff like this!
FAIL!!
May 28th, 2008 at 8:20 am
It has been done before - Joe Kittinger, and USAF test pilot, rode a balloon to 102,800 feet before jumping - on 16 August, 1960.
He achieved a maximum velocity of 714 mph, well over the speed of sound.
Blood can spontaneously boil at altitudes in above 62,000 feet; Kittinger, like the french guy who history is already forgetting, wore a pressurized space suit. Kittinger’s suit had a partial failure - one glove did not inflate, exposing his hand to the near-vacuum of that altitude. He regained full use of the hand after a couple days on the ground.
While the french guy’s attempt was specifically for the record, Kittinger’s flight was for research for the manned Mercury space program.
May 28th, 2008 at 8:44 am
Jason:
Speed of sound (at sea level) is ~1117 feet per second, acceleration due to gravity is ~ 32 feet per second per second. It would take ~35 seconds to reach 1117 feet per second in a hard vacuum, and he’d do it within the first 30,000 feet of his fall.
Considering that Kittinger managed 714mph after falling ~30,000 of his 102,800 starting altitude, the french guy would probably have topped out between 900 and 1200 mph - nearly twice the speed of sound.
May 28th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
terminal velocity and speed of sound both have an inverse square root dependency on density of the medium. therefore, they vary together and it’s a much more complex relation than you may imagine by just thinking about the terminal velocity. however, it’s one which I cannot be arsed working out. suffice to say it’s a bit trickier than carl imagines - maybe he should’ve stayed awake in high school physics . . .
May 28th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
apologies carl, i meant willy should’ve stayed awake.
May 29th, 2008 at 3:16 am
For the people who asked why.
Knowing whether the jump is possible is important when planning security measures for shuttle launches and in the future, hopefully for the space elevator.
May 30th, 2008 at 2:40 am
Joe,
Willy’s statement is FAR more precise than Carl’s. Carl claims that the maximum velocity a skydiver could obtain was approximately 124mph.
However, Carl correctly pointed out that terminal velocity is a function of gravity and the density of air.
All of you need to pick up your history books. A jump from 102,800 feets was made 50 years ago. Top speed reached was 714.
(Look up about 5 comments)
May 30th, 2008 at 7:02 am
yes dave, but willy was a tad smug in making his point, and, in my humble opinion, needed to be taken down a peg.
May 30th, 2008 at 7:08 am
anyway, my point was not so much about terminal velocity (it’s almost blindingly obvious that that quantity will increase, and not very interesting to point out), but more about the interesting question: could terminal velocity increase to a point beyond the speed of sound, even though speed of sound varies similarly?
May 30th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Here’s info about the original record-setting jump
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kittinger
From the article:
“On August 16, 1960 he made the final jump from the Excelsior III at 102,800 feet (31,330 m). Towing a small drogue chute for stabilization, he fell for 14 minutes and 36 seconds reaching a maximum speed of 614 mph (988 km/h or 274 m/s) before opening his parachute at 18,000 feet (5,500 m). Pressurization for his right glove malfunctioned during the ascent, and his right hand swelled to twice its normal size.[2] He set records for highest balloon ascent, highest parachute jump, longest drogue-fall (14 min), and fastest speed by a human through the atmosphere.”
May 30th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Joe,
Willy had a reason to be a bit smug - he was right while Carl was completely wrong.
Your question - about whether he could break the actual sound barrier is quite interesting.
On the one hand, I’ve always been of the impression that the speed of sound changes with the density of the medium. You often see the speed of sound referring to “the speed of sound at sea level”, implying that altitude plays a role. However, I have not found any equations linking altitude or density to the speed of sound.
On the other hand, I have found several sources that claim altitude and/or density play no significant role in determining the speed of sound, and that the primary variable affecting it is temperature.
Using these equations, the best numbers I have been able to discover indicate the speed of sound between 90,000 and 130,000 feet varies from 670 to 723 mph, respectively. Between 30,000 and 70,000 feet, the speed was a near constant 660 mph.
One can presume that 714mph closely approximates terminal velocity for a man in a space suit at 90,000 feet, based on data from Kitinger’s experiment. This suggests that terminal velocity is 44mph greater than the speed of sound at 90,000 feet.
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/sound.html
http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-speedsound.htm
May 30th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
dave, that’s funny - i found equations on wikipedia (of all places).
c=sqrt(C/ro)
where c=speed of sound, C=compressibility and ro=density of medium.
Vt=sqrt((2.m.g)/(ro.A.Cd))
where Vt=terminal velocity, m=mass of falling object, g=gravitational acceleration, ro=density of medium, A=area perpendicular to direction of gravitational acceleration and Cd=drag coefficient.
now, at this point i decided not to follow it through, since it would have meant finding standard expressions for the compressibility and the drag coefficient, and i’m lazy; but it would not be much work for the eager amateur. you will notice, however, that the dependence of both terminal velocity and speed of sound is one of inverse square root of density of medium, which is all i said.
i must correct you, though, in your assertion that ‘altitude and/or density play no significant role in determining the speed of sound, and that the primary variable affecting it is temperature’ since the fact of the matter is that the only way in which temperature affects speed of sound is via its effect on the density of the medium concerned (clearly considerable when a gas is the medium - allow me to refer you to the ideal gas law, PV=nRT; almost no effect at all in a liquid or solid).
by now, according to your smugness by correctness scale, i am lord smug of smugsville, for which i apologise.
May 31st, 2008 at 4:20 pm
20 million miles is a long way down, not to mention the $131,000 he spent building the space shute. I hope he’s did all his math right!
June 1st, 2008 at 12:25 am
Joe,
This is gonna be fun… You ready?
“at this point i decided not to follow it through, since it would have meant finding standard expressions for the compressibility”
Perhaps you should have done that. You’re a smart person, I’ll grant that. Perhaps you could tell us what happens if, at a constant temperature and in a constant medium (the atmosphere), C was directly and linearly related to ro.
Would it mean that, for a constant medium and a constant temperature, the ratio of C to ro would be constant? Would that then mean that the speed of sound was dependent not on atmospheric pressure, but on temperature? (If you’re playing along at home, the answer to both those questions is a resounding “yes”)
The numbers I provided - 670 to 723 mph @ 90,000 to 130,000 feet - were calculated with your equation, or rather, a simplified version of it provided by NASA. Feel free to read the reference to discover how it was simplified.
From the numbers I provided, you should have been able to figure out that there is no “inverse square root” relationship between altitude and speed of sound.
I think you can figure out where to cram your “dependence of the speed of sound is one of inverse square root of density” statement. While true, it would only be applicable if we were interested in calculating the speed of sound in various media. And we are not - we’re only interested in the speed of sound in the atmosphere.
So, if you may be lord of all smugsville, I am First Emperor of the Intergalactic Smug Federation, and the Smugzonians of a neighboring dimension are petitioning for admittance to my smuggy empire.
June 1st, 2008 at 1:39 am
“Would it mean that, for a constant medium and a constant temperature, the ratio of C to ro would be constant? Would that then mean that the speed of sound was dependent not on atmospheric pressure, but on temperature? (If you’re playing along at home, the answer to both those questions is a resounding “yes”)”
sorry kids, but at this point, our correspondent kills his argument. try to follow it, point by point. good luck!!
(the problem is that first he stipulates constant temperature and then tries to use a constant temperature argument to prove a temperature relation. back to school, my dear chap.)
you really should have more important things to do than expose your ignorance on a comments forum. that is why i couldn’t be bothered to solve the problem in the first place: too busy. hey ho, you’ll know next time, eh?
June 1st, 2008 at 2:30 am
Wow.
WOW.
You provided the equation c=sqrt(C/ro). You did not mathematically define C. You don’t seem to understand that the variable ro is inherent in C.
I said that, given a constant temperature and a constant medium (air) that C is directly related to ro. “ro” of course, is the density of the medium, and C is the compressibility of the medium. All other variables inherent in C remaining constant, as ro changes, C changes proportionate to ro.
Thus, any changes in C are due to those other variables NOT RO.
Compressibility of a given medium is directly related to the density of the medium, at least according to the two sources I have provided.
What this means is that altitude does not matter. If you maintain the same temperature at any altitude, the speed of sound remains the same.
Which means that, if the speed of sound changes, it is NOT due to the altitude, but to some other factor. The primary factor is Temperature, but other environmental factors play a part - humidity, wind shear, etc.
“you really should have more important things to do than expose your ignorance on a comments forum. that is why i couldn’t be bothered to solve the problem in the first place”
Boy, truer words were never said.
(the problem is that first he stipulates constant temperature and then tries to use a constant temperature argument to prove a temperature relation. back to school, my dear chap.)
No, that argument demonstrated that ro and C were directly related, therefore any changes c had to have been caused by some variable inherent in C.
June 1st, 2008 at 7:05 am
dave,
the problem here is that you are wrong, and no amount of blustering will change that (unfortunately, this is a feature of physics). clearly, altitude per se is not a factor; however, on earth, when altitude has a profound effect on density, it becomes a factor. just think about it, it’s really not that hard.
i apologise for the overly patronising tone of my comment last night, it was unnecessary. looking forward to the next instalment.
June 1st, 2008 at 7:36 am
ok. i’ve just been through the maths. never let it be said that i can’t admit it when i’m wrong. for the uninitiated amongst readers of this forum, my mistake was in the assignation of significance to density of air, and in a too dogged desire to not do the maths. dave, congratulations on your recent promotion to become the defining factor of smugness.
June 1st, 2008 at 7:54 am
Joe,
I finally visited the wikipedia article on Speed of Sound, which I believe is the article where you got the equation. This quote appears significantly relevant:
“In a given ideal gas the sound speed depends only on its temperature. At a constant temperature, the ideal gas pressure has no effect on the speed of sound, because pressure and density (also proportional to pressure) have equal but opposite effects on the speed of sound, and the two contributions cancel out exactly.”
Let’s try a different tack:
Give me a range of values for the speed of sound. Do the numbers you discover range from 670 to 723 for 90,000 feet to 130,000 feet?
The original question you posed was not whether the speed of sound is related to density, but whether or not terminal velocity for a man in a space suit was, at some altitude, greater than the speed of sound. The numbers I have suggest that terminal velocity for Joe Kittinger was at least 44mph greater than the speed of sound at 90,000 feet.
I arrived at those numbers from 1. Kitinger’s reported maximum velocity of 714mph, which reportedly occured at 90,000 feet, and 2. the speed of sound at 90,000 feet as calculated by a tool at the NASA website I referred to above. I supplied one of several different references that corroborated the equation NASA used.
June 1st, 2008 at 8:00 am
The Smugzonians AND the Smugalites of neighboring dimension have agreed to join the Intergalactic Smug Empire; To reflect the level of my resulting position, I have promoted myself from First Emperor to Grand Supreme UltraMegaPotentate
(I couldn’t have done it without you!)
So, can we be friends now?
June 2nd, 2008 at 5:17 pm
HAHAHAHAHA. DISREGARD THAT, I SUCK COCKS!
June 2nd, 2008 at 7:16 pm
muhadeeb Says:
May 27th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
The balloon left with him. Oh well, say la vie!!
It’s C’est la vie
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:11 pm
20 million, well i would like to say i have actually helped mankind in my lifetime.
Selfish……………
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:25 pm
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June 24th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
I love when a perfectly entertaining and bizarre story gets hijacked by an even more entertaining and bizarre smug-science pissing contest! Go, go internets!
June 29th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Ok As the title suggests that he will be falling @ 25 miles up yea thats possible but the claim that they male about the sound barrier is impossible. All objects have a thing called terminal velocity. and no object on earths is high enough to break the sound barrier. The highest any person has achevied with out any special assistance is 614 mph that 1) is no where near the sound barrier (only 1/9 of it) 2) his claim of max speed @ 1000mph is rediculus 3) thats still no where near the sound barrier. im sorry but this frenchman is sorrily mistaken personally i hope he misses his next balloncause the sound barrier is impossible to reach and if he did it would probbibly kill him
July 11th, 2008 at 5:45 am
You fucked yourself with your grammar, Good Luck.
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:50 am
Dear Joe,
Your line “joe
May 30th, 2008 at 7:02 am
yes dave, but willy was a tad smug in making his point, and, in my humble opinion, needed to be taken down a peg.” Has just made me hate you. Just wanted you to know, please in the future try to act like less of a tool.