Balls of F*cking Steel

[craigie b]

Holly sh*t, this guy is the man. In 1960 he floated up on balloon to the edges of space and fucking jumped. I cannot fathom how brave this guy must be.

Even watching the video sent chills down my spine.

Truly outstanding effort.

https://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-369888258105653405&q=%22First+man+In+Space+-+Skydiving+from+the+edge+of+the+world%22+playable%3Atrue

[D O G]

Yup that guy had a set of plums alright - have seen this footage before, the view from his release point is crazy - he must have had such a temptation to start his fall well before then. But what a rush that must have been on the way down.

[pwntifex]

I always preferred this video..
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the warped one: This is a follow up from the thread 'my willy hurts'

[Sparks!]

How gutted would you be if you jumped then realised there was no gravity and you just floated off into space
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[cestrian]

Nice bit of escapism there. Cheers.

[silky666]

he reached the speed of sound
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[st3v3]

Would of thought he would of burned up in the atmosphere.
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[Ben.]

i would be scared of going too far out and then just floating off into space...
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[craigie b]

That's what freaked me out. I mean, you can condition yourself to jumping, but in 1960 it was the great unknown. For all he knew, he may very well have floated into space. The man took on the unknown, in circumstances that would inject terror into most people and said fuck it lets do it.
Hero

[D O G]

[Ben.]

how far do you have to go then to get stuck in orbit?
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[D O G]

Well technically you are always in the pull of Earth's gravity - the attractive force just diminishes the further away you go.

Being in orbit is something different. Lets say you were to swing a ball on the end of a rope above your head. Imagine that your hand is the centre of the Earth, and the ball is the orbiting satellite. In this case gravity is equal to the tension in the rope preventing the ball from flying off.

Orbiting objects have a speed across the Earth's surface, and the force of gravity prevents them from fucking off into the great unknown.

This guy had no speed across the surface, so he would have to go much further out than an orbiting satellite before he would (effectively) just float in space. You saw how fast he fell away from the balloon - he was nowhere near a height where his acceleration due to gravity would be much reduced.

[ms51ves3]

The thing is he would have always known that he wouldn't have floated into space. If he was just going to float away he would have just floated off his balloon. He was stood on it with his feet firmly on the platform meanins he could feel gravity.
He had a great opportunity to do something that no one else will ever do.

[Phoenix]

He'd just have to drop something inside the basket to make sure gravity was still strong, or do a little jump. He didn't burn up because he was only going 900km/h, nowhere near fast enough to create the friction needed to burn up on entering the atmosphere (or denser air in his case).

[McGee]

I would do it
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Its pronounced Jixxer!

[pwntifex]

[McGee]

[pwntifex]