Posted on 12/26/2014 5:44:39 PM PST by WhiskeyX
Space diving is the next big step beyond sky diving, and it is envisioned as a concept that would allow spaceflight participants a means of escape from a possibly disastrous on-orbit emergency, or perhaps just a new recreational activity for those no longer satisfied with merely jumping out of aircraft. The RL MARK VI would allow high-altitude jumps from near-space, suborbital space, and eventually low Earth orbit itself.
[See VIDEO]
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
Do you have to wear a heat-shield, just like those re-entry vehicles had when astronauts came back down?
More like a surf board that the astronaut rides through the atmosphere.
;)
Re-entering from low earth orbit? Of course you do, silly! And the team has already come up with a revolutionary design for a personal heat shield. Here is a photo taken during recent R&D proof-of-concept testing:
Notice the cool-blue color which is designed to absorb all the re-entry heat. No ablation needed.
The video (animation) shows a fine landing with pretty good handling of the parachute.
Just damn..... Why does the suit have to be YELLOW??
Geez....
Like this?
Easier to spot the body from the air.
I had one of those guys.
“Will rival anything you’ve ever seen in a movie”
Oh yeah? How about Godzilla? Will it rival Godzilla? It would have to be like a giant aardvark parachuting in space and kicking over Tokyo to rival Godzilla. Will it make that noise like Godzilla? I suppose if you pulled the straps too tight in the crotch.
I’d rather slam into the troposphere like an exploding supersonic hot dog than be caught wearing that.
“
Just damn..... Why does the suit have to be YELLOW??
Geez.... “
Ahhh... But you missed the accessories the suit comes with. Looks like a generic version of a Dillon gun sitting on the chair behind the guy. Imagine the possibilities while screaming in from outer space armed with a Dillon gun. Pick your target!
Okay, maybe I’m getting a bit imaginative.
In heinlein’s Starship Troopers, the Marines were dropped from low orbit in personal aeroshell pods to survive reentry.
“Do you have to wear a heat-shield, just like those re-entry vehicles had when astronauts came back down?”
The need for a form of heat shield is dependent upon whether or not you are returning to the Earth’s atmosphere from deep space, low Earth Orbit (LEO), or the altitude and ballistic trajectory of a sub-orbital flight. The linked video in the article is somewhat unscientific in a few respects, but it presupposes the space diver ascended into a sub-orbital ballistic flight aboard a rocket propelled vehicle and jumped at the apex with a near zero miles per hour speed relative to the Earth. This would allow the space diver to avoid the tremendous speeds through the atmosphere a space diver would encounter when deorbiting with a speed relative to the Earth of greater than 16,000 miles per hour.
A space diver deorbiting from a spacecraft in orbit around the Earth must decrease speed from more than 16,000 miles per hour to around 200 miles per hour or less before reentry into that part of the Earth’s atmosphere capable of generating significant aerodynamic forces upon the space diver’s body.
The same is true of an astronaut or space diver returning to the Earth’s atmosphere from deep space. The space diver must decelerate the speed from around 24,000 miles per hour or greater down to about 200 miles per hour before encountering aerodynamic pressures capable of disintegrating the space diver’s body.
One of the proposed methods for an astronaut or space diver to decelerate from orbital or greater speeds is to use a heat shield type device to skip off the surface of the atmosphere like a rock skipping across the surface of a pond to shed speed. This is sometimes depicted in fiction as a form of atmospheric surfing.
Excellent
I’ve just started that book in audio form today. Not too bad.
yellow ? ... so they can locate the body ....
Total, utter VAPORWARE.
The whole point of the article was to show the photo, video, and emphasize that the companies were minority-owned.
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