Posted on 07/01/2007 9:12:20 AM PDT by FormerACLUmember
Sixty miles up, you sit in a chair on the open deck of a small rocket, admiring the stars above, the Earth far, far below. The vacuum beyond your visor is cold, but it would boil your blood if your pressure suit failed. You give your parachute straps a reassuring pat. It’s utterly silent. Just you and your fragile body, hovering alone above the Earth. “Space Diver One, you are go,” crackles a voice in your ear, and you undo your harness and stand up. There’s nothing for it now: You paid a lot of money for this.
You breathe deeply and leap, somersaulting into the void. The mother planet is gorgeous from up here. You barely perceive that it’s rushing up toward you, and your body relaxes. You streak into the atmosphere at 2,500 miles an hour, faster than anyone’s ever gone without a vehicle.
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(Excerpt) Read more at popsci.com ...
Cool! Either Disovery or the History Channel did a 90 minute doc on project Manhigh that I saw a few years ago.
How you gonna keep cool enough in that thing when it begins to glow? It would have to be a lot thicker IMHO.
Orbital skydiving was the plot device used in a Star Trek novel a while back where Kirk had to get to the surface of a planet ahead of the Klingons without using a shuttlecraft or transporter. Never thought I’d see anything about it outside of sci-fi tho!
Juan Rico unimpressed.
Starship Troopers jump suit.
Buy the ticket, take the ride. The risk is part of the thrill. How badly do you want to play?
LOL - LOVE your tag line!
lol
I get scared on extra-long escalators.
There would also be a big liability problem if the chute doesn’t open. Imagine the kinetic energy of an adult human falling 60 miles: The landing would be a significant explosion, same principle as the so-called Rods from God.
I think if the chutes don’t open, you boil to death entering at 2500 mph.
I would start up a business like this advertising its the path to achieving ultimate guarantee of 72 virgins for Muslims, parachute cost an additional fee.
One way or another, you will see God during the jump.
Really, what could possibly go wrong?
Have always been in awe of the early balloonists - reaching thousands of feet in the 18th century.. amazing.
It might be useful as an emergency back up system small enough to be added to other craft, but whether even that would be cost effective would depend on how often you predict the need, on how expensive it is to routinely lug their added mass to and from orbit, and on how high you set the value of the lives otherwise lost. The first can hopefully be estimated, the second is straightforward, but the third is touchy. It shouldn't be computed after the fact, as we too often do with disasters, but before the fact based on economic considerations and on comparisons to other risks we routinely accept. There would no shortage of capable volunteers for dangerous work in space if we lowered the standards to those of the first Cosmonauts instead of the astronomical standards now applied. Yes, we should highly value life, but if we value it too highly we become risk adverse to the point of preventing progress and are left with the often greatly underrated risks of maintaining the status quo.
No kidding. Hold my beer....
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