The eagerly awaited Red Bull Stratos Challenge has been placed on indefinite hold, pending the resolution of a mulitmillion dollar lawsuit claiming a share of the rights -- and thus any profits -- of the project. So those of us longing to witness the first supersonic parachute jump will just have to wait, while the lawyers haggle things out in court.
For the uninitiated, the Red Bull Stratos Challenge seeks to take freefalling (with a parachute) to the edge of space, breaking a record that has existed for a good 50 years. Back in the late 1950s, Air Force captain Joe Kittinger made a series of high-altitude parachute jumps from the open gondola of a helium balloon as part of "Project Excelsior." It was part of ongoing research into how the human body reacts to high altitudes, crucial preparation for future manned space exploration.
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Kittinger's first jump, on November 16, 1959, nearly ended in disaster. He jumped from 76,000 feet, but his parachute malfunctioned and opened early, catching on his neck. He spiraled and lost consciousness, despite wearing a specially designed pressurized suit, and was only saved when his backup parachute activated at 10,000 feet. (Unofficial estimates for the G forces he experienced were on the order of 22 times that of earth's gravity.) Undeterred, Kittinger jumped again one month later, from an altitude of 74,700 feet.
Kittinger's record-setting dive (pictured below) occurred on August 16, 1960, from a dizzying altitude of 102,800 feet -- at the very edge of the Earth's atmosphere. He spent 12 very uncomfortable minutes at that altitude, experiencing temperatures of minus 94 degrees F, and pain from a malfunctioning pressurized glove.
Then he jumped, and was in freefall for a full five minutes before it was safe to pop his parachute. He reached speeds of 614 mph, the fastest speed yet attained by a man in the atmosphere.
But he didn't break the sound barrier! And that's where daredevil Felix Baumgarten comes in. He is the "face" of Red Bull's Stratos Challenge, who has racked up over 2000 parachute jumps, including one off the Golden Gate Bridge. He's youthful, good-looking, sports a couple of hip tattoos (one reads "Born To Fly", the other is his BASE-jumping code), and clearly relishes taking crazy risks, but is also known as a daredevil who knows when to back down -- hence his survival.
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Red Bull assembled a crack team of scientists to help prepare Baumgarten for the stunt, including veteran aerospace engineer Art Thompson (who helped design the B-2 bomber) and six-time Space Shuttle crew surgeon Jonathan Clark. Kittinger himself (pictured below with Baumgarten) gave his blessing to the project and participated in some of the planning.
Plans call for a jump from 120,000 feet, using a stratospheric balloon, with the hope that Baumgarten will break the sound barrier (go supersonic) before popping his parachute. He'll need to acclimate first, with a series of shorter jumps, which will also help with trouble-shooting: there are risks of sudden depressurization of the specialized suit designed for the mission, as well as going into a spin (like on Kittinger's first attempt), not to mention other electrical or mechanical malfunctions.
But if Baumgarten overcomes all those challenges and succeeds, it will be the first supersonic parachute jump. (Note the qualifier: a former Blackbird SR-71 pilot, Bill Weaver, is the only known person to travel at more than Mach 1 in the Earth's atmosphere and survive, in just a flight suit. But it was an accident, not a deliberate jump. Weaver was forcibly ejected from his damaged plane; his copilot died in the accident.)
The stage was set, and the public primed, for Baumgarten's historic attempt by the end of the year -- until one Daniel Hogan filed a complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court claiming that he pitched Red Bull on a similar campaign back in 2004, and thus is entitled to damages and a share of any profits. This could be as much as $625 million, according to Hogan's lawsuit, mostly in the form of corporate sponsorships for the person setting the record -- which, if Red Bull prevails, will be Baumgarten.
One can only speculate as to why Red Bull opted not to work with Hogan; the company released the following carefully worded, terse statement as its only comment on the situation:
Despite the fact that many other people over the past 50 years have tried to break Colonel (Ret.) Joe Kittinger's record, and that other individuals have sought to work with Red Bull in an attempt to break his record, Mr. Hogan claims to own certain rights to the project and filed a multimillion dollar lawsuit earlier this year in a Californian court. Red Bull has acted appropriately in its prior dealings with Mr. Hogan, and will demonstrate this as the case progresses.
If you read the fine print, however, not even Kittinger holds the record for the world's longest freefall -- if you consider the use of a drogue chute to stabilize the jumper during freefall to be, well, a bit of a cheat. If you do accept that premise, then the record holder (according to Guiness Book of World Records) is a Russian, Eugene Andreev, who jumped from a Volga balloon at an altititude of 83,523 feet and fell for 80,380 feet before deploying his parachute, way back on November 1, 1960, near Saratov, Russia.
So even if Baumgarten gets to make his attempt, and succeeds, Andreev's record will still hold: Baumgarten's equipment includes an aerodynamic drogue parachute. The importance of the Red Bull Stratos Challenge won't lie in the world record, but in the advances in spacesuit design and scientific knowledge about how high altitudes affect human physiology -- which in turn could pave the way for space travel for all of us, not just the daredevils.
Image (top): Pilot Felix Baumgartner, left, shakes hands with United States Air Force Col.(Ret.) Joe Kittinger, right, following the Red Bull Stratos press conference announcing Baumgartner's intent to break the record (AP Photo)
Tags: Astronauts, Aviation, Current Events
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