Showing posts with label balloon skydive. Show all posts
Showing posts with label balloon skydive. Show all posts

Daredevil Skydiver First to Join 24 Mile High Club

"WEE! WEE!"
Santa Fe, New Mexico –

Daredevil skydiver, Felix Baumgartner, is the first to beat the Mile High Club record by 23 miles. 

“I just wish…I just wish I wasn’t up there all alone,” said a reflective, Baumgartner, who had to turn to an alternate method of warming himself up, after having trouble with the heater in his visor. All while wearing a space suit seated in a special pressurized capsule that dangled beneath a high atmospheric balloon.

Shortly after the malfunction occurred some 24 miles up and just minutes before he was to make his historical jump, Baumgartner turned off the cameras in the capsule monitoring his progress. 

“Mission control was spit balling suggestions in to my earpiece on what to do,” calmly recalled, Baumgartner.  “Even suggesting I scrub the jump.” 

Finally, Baumgartner took matters into his hands, so to speak, and shut off all the cameras in the capsule. 

A few minutes later, the cameras came back on and the heating problem was solved.

“The sensor readings from his visor were suddenly nominal again,” said an engineer monitoring the jump. 

Back on earth, Baumgartner refused to discuss with engineers what he did in those couple of minutes to fix the problem or why he shut off the cameras and turned them back on afterwards.  

“Whatever Baumgartner did to bring up the temperature in his space suit, it worked,” said an engineer. 

Engineers also noted a spike in Baumgartner’s heart rate and a strange shuttering emanating from within the capsule during the duration of the video blackout. 

“He won’t discuss that with us either. But that’s okay really,” said another engineer.  

Engineers say that although Baumgartner cut the video feed, he did not cut the audio feed.

“They run on independent recording systems for redundant backup purposes,” explained an engineer.

Engineers will be analyzing the audio in the coming days.

"We'll find out soon enough what Baumgartner did exactly in those couple of minutes to warm himself up,” said an engineer.

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