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Skydive from "Edge of Space" (120,000 ft)


LukeTim

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Very impressive. I held my breath when he spun, that didn't look like it was going to plan - but he regained control, and touched down beautifully. Kudos to Felix and the team for pulling this off.

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Doesn't he technically still get the record for longest freefall? If I remember correctly, Kittinger used a drogue chute to slow his descent...

Nah, Kittinger didn't use a drogue chute. Though they mentioned during the stream that in an earlier test jump, Kittinger's drogue deployed too early.

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I know for a fact he had a "stabilization chute", I don't consider that to be a free fall. Felix was freefalling until he deployed the main chute, hence the gnarly spin. Either way it was an amazing accomplishment.

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I find it a bit annoying hearing the media talk about "the edge of space". Space is empirically considered to start at 100km, which is nearly 3 times the altitude reached by Baumgartner's balloon.

I even read articles this morning claiming that this jump was a huge step to figure out how astronauts could evacuate from orbit which is totally silly, or people asking if he was closer to the ISS than to the ground (the ISS orbits at 10 times this altitude and more importantly travels at 28000km/h). Most people don't realize that spaceflight is about speed, not altitude, and that you can't just jump off the ISS wit a parachute or get into orbit with a balloon.

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