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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/28/skydiver-luke-aikins-jump-without-parachute-live-tv
"He's made 18,000 parachute jumps, helped train some of the world's most elite skydivers, done some of the stunts for Ironman 3. But the plunge Luke Aikins knows he'll be remembered for is the one he's making without a parachute. Or a wingsuit.
Or anything, really, other than the clothes he'll be wearing when he jumps out of an airplane at 25,000 feet [7600 m] this weekend, attempting to become the first person to land safely on the ground in a net."
[...] "To me, I'm proving that we can do stuff that we don't think we can do if we approach it the right way," he answers.
"I've got 18,000 jumps with a parachute, so why not wear one this time?" he muses almost to himself. "But I'm trying to show that it can be done."
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 29 2016, @03:41PM
WHOOOSH!
Air delivery Darwin Award. Cool!
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday July 29 2016, @03:43PM
I imagine it'll be a short trip. Too bad he didn't wait until Fall to do it.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @04:13PM
Followed by "THUD".
(Score: 3, Informative) by Dunbal on Friday July 29 2016, @04:30PM
Just one gust of wind away.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @01:50AM
He's going to make a large impact in his field.
(Score: 4, Informative) by tangomargarine on Friday July 29 2016, @03:50PM
Vesna Vulović is a Serbian former flight attendant. She holds the distinction of being the world record holder, according to the Guinness Book of Records, for surviving the highest fall without a parachute: 10,160 metres (33,333 ft).
Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @05:34PM
I don't think she fell by herself. If I remember the story well, she was in a broken-off tail section of the airplane which fell with her inside.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anne Nonymous on Friday July 29 2016, @06:08PM
> I don't think she fell by herself.
Nobody likes a cheater.
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Friday July 29 2016, @09:22PM
This lady did it without being in a part of a plane and she ended up with just bruises:
http://www.news24.com/xArchive/Archive/Skydiver-survives-15km-fall-20010213 [news24.com]
2001-02-13 12:22
Kuala Lumpur - A Malaysian woman, on her first skydiving jump, survived with only bruises after plunging 1.5km after her parachute failed to open, a news report said on Tuesday.
"I don't believe it. I'm actually alive," Tang Lee Ping told the Star daily newspaper, adding that she had blacked out in fear when she realised both her main parachute and its spare had not opened.
Perhaps the failed main and spare chute slowed Ms Tang's descent enough. Still very remarkable.
Would expect more like Vesna's fractured skull, three broken vertebrae and both legs broken: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulovi%C4%87#Fall [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday July 29 2016, @09:27PM
1.5 kilometers is also less than 1/6 of 33k feet :P
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Informative) by esperto123 on Saturday July 30 2016, @01:20AM
it actually doesn't matter, once you reach terminal velocity, after about 200m fall, the initial altitude is irrelevant.
With exception of a altitude so high that you are closer to the Karman line than the ground, then the air drag may not be enough to brake you and you end up hiting the ground faster than that, but in that case you would already be dead due to lack of oxigen, so...
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday July 30 2016, @09:28AM
… you better bring a scuba tank for your jump. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Tuesday August 09 2016, @07:47AM
If you're still close to the Karman line wouldn't you still slow down in time to the normal terminal velocity? Felix hit about Mach 1+ but slowed down quite a fair bit as a result.
I suspect you'd have more problems if you were doing it from 300km instead of 100km: http://www.wired.com/2010/05/star-trek-space-jump/ [wired.com]
(Score: 2) by esperto123 on Tuesday August 09 2016, @11:06AM
Maybe, I didn't do the math, but the point I wanted to make was that you would reach a stable velocity no matter the initial altitude you were jumping from, unless it was so high that air drag and compression alone could slow you down enough to equalize the forces.
In Felix Baumgartener's case he was not even half the way to the Karman line and he had to use a drogue chute the slow him down enough to safely open the main, so maybe the altitude necessary for what I described to happen is even lower, but once you get above Mach speeds air drag gets all funky and at, lets say 75km, I think you would maybe die from the shock waves once you hit higher density atmosphere, and it would happen well before you hit the ground.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Friday July 29 2016, @03:54PM
I'm not sure why he is going to 7600m, if he just wants to be the first person to fall into a net he just needs to achieve terminal velocity (~450m).
There are a number of recorded falls from aeroplanes which were non-fatal, ranging from almost death to minor scrapes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_fall#Surviving_falls [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @04:49PM
Presumably, diving from 7600m is more fun than diving from 450m.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Friday July 29 2016, @05:10PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by LaminatorX on Friday July 29 2016, @05:56PM
I'm guessing he chose a height where he'd have time to steer his descent, particularly time to attempt recovery if he's blown off course. He could still get blown to his doom in the last few moments, of course, but if he's already got a ton of momentum bearing on-target by that time a last minute shift in the wind would have to overcome that.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by donkeyhotay on Friday July 29 2016, @06:14PM
I saw a documentary once on Juliane Koepcke who survived a 3.2km fall into the Peruvian rain forest in 1971. As if the fall were not bad enough, she had to survive for something like eleven days before she got help. A fascinating story.
(Score: 3, Informative) by donkeyhotay on Friday July 29 2016, @06:17PM
Although he will hit terminal velocity at 450m, I think the higher distance has a lot more to do with hitting the target net. It would be harder to hit a 30m X 30m target from 25,000 feet than from 1,500 feet.
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Saturday July 30 2016, @08:49AM
If he's not completely crazy there might be other skydivers already "falling by" to give him a chute in case he's too off course to hit the target or the target becomes not visible (cloud, smoke etc). If you're higher up there's more time to figure out whether you need a chute or not. Those other skydivers don't have to appear in the main video if things go well.
But the fact that they have only one net and the net can fail like that seems to indicate that their competency might not be that high and they may just be winging it, without wings ;).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @08:52AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @03:55PM
of Darwin in 3...2...1...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @03:59PM
uhh, b/c you said you wouldn't? it was your idea...
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Friday July 29 2016, @04:16PM
attempting to become the first person to land safely on the ground in a net.
I'm pretty sure people have landed in nets before. Maybe not from this high up...
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Friday July 29 2016, @05:23PM
Those nets were all hanging in the air, although at very low altitude. Jumping into a net lying on the ground might be new. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Friday July 29 2016, @06:03PM
It says the net is 20 stories high, and then not to try this at home, which made me wonder about the Fox viewership.
I might potentially consider thinking about studying the possibility to form a committee to analyse the eventuality of trying something like that. On the quietest wind-free day in history. If the net was hanging over that new Chinese radiotelescope. And they filled under it with dark chocolate mousse. And I had a parachute to open in case the approach looked wrong.
With a net "a third of a football field", I'm pretty sure I'll have a terrible sore throat on jump day.
(Score: 3, Informative) by captain normal on Friday July 29 2016, @06:36PM
You're just now starting to wonder about Fox viewers? I think it's been rather obvious for the last couple of decades that they make up the most gullible people in the world.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 3, Touché) by edIII on Friday July 29 2016, @06:43PM
It would be an excellent addition to the Redneck Olympics.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by redneckmother on Friday July 29 2016, @07:25PM
Redneck Olympics:
Any event in which a contestant says, "Hey! Summbuddy hol' my beer, and y'all watch THIS!"
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @09:20PM
Redneck Olympics is (or was) an actual event.
Of course, they had to change the name after - and this is true - being threatened by the US Olympic Committee [telegraph.co.uk].
But, judging from your name, I'm sure you already knew that :)
(Score: 1) by sendafiolorkar on Friday July 29 2016, @05:09PM
Luke Skywalker
Anakin Skywalker
Use the force Luke... Aikins
(Score: 2, Funny) by nitehawk214 on Friday July 29 2016, @05:41PM
More of a Skyfaller.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Friday July 29 2016, @05:53PM
There was a guy here, not too long ago, who wanted to set some record or other in a wing suit. More than 2000 successful flights. He swore he only flew when it was safe. But each new record meant only that an even riskier one had to be broken. The day came, the weather was just slightly off - some light fog near the ground - for some reason he jumped anyway. Inside one of those pockets of mist, he wrapped himself around a rock. He was newly married - what a great honeymoon present for the wife.
So here we have another parachutist and base jumper. After thousands of jumps, and plenty of new records, he no longer gets the kick out of it he wants. Time to up the risk again. Why are we supposed to be impressed, exactly?
Adrenaline junkies are addicts like any other. They don't deserve respect or publicity. Maybe sadness, not for them, but for their friends, family and the poor sots who have to mop their remains off the rocks.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @06:13PM
So much better to be a nameless normie doing utterly boring and normal things. I don't care for their activities, but I won't pass judgment on them either; they're certainly not cowards.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @06:14PM
Did the guy have kids? If not, will you submit him to http://www.darwinawards.com/ [darwinawards.com]?
Let the problem take care of itself, remove all safety labels!
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday July 29 2016, @07:36PM
Adrenaline junkies also break sound barriers, are the first to space, are the first to experience what the human body can handle. Yes, the probability of living to 80 is fairly low, but that's not a reason to give such harsh judgment against them.
I doubt Chuck Yeager felt as you do, and not all adrenaline junkies are also unsafe. Being an old astronaut is actually a thing now.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @08:15PM
The human species can tolerate a lot more males dying than females. So guys doing risky things at their limits or beyond can actually be good for the species. It may explain why so many guys (especially the younger ones) get the urge to push limits in risky ways. If they succeed and breed, the gene pool may get some of their attributes - which might be better than average, and thus help improve the species. If they die then they weren't good enough. If they get permanently crippled they might be less likely to breed successfully.
That's probably why there's a gender imbalance in certain classes of youtube videos ( some successes end up in "humans are awesome" videos, failures in "fail compilation videos", really bad fails in "WARNING: This video may be disturbing to some viewers." ;) ).
Some may say it's bad because those guys are stupid or foolish and their genes end up in the pool, but there are plenty of fairly successful stupid species around so that's not necessarily a big problem for the species as a whole. It may turn out that certain bacteria would still be better at being space-faring species than humans. With all our supposed brains we haven't actually been making that much progress on that front and might actually take huge leaps backwards instead (global nuclear war etc).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Friday July 29 2016, @09:06PM
This isn't about adrenaline. It's a tech demo for a really good net. Maybe it could be used in space missions.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Funny) by wonkey_monkey on Friday July 29 2016, @06:58PM
Parachutist to Jump From 25,000 feet (7600 m) Without a Parachute/Wingsuit
A parachutist without a parachute is just some guy. Some guy to jump from 25,000ft without a parachute.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @09:45PM
"Some guy to jump from 25,000ft without a parachute."
This is how the papers in France will report it (except it will be in French and the distance will be 7700 m). They won't mention his name; it'll just be un gars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @09:54PM
Could this spectacle be intended to distract us from something more important that the powers that be will be doing?
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday July 30 2016, @04:31AM
Https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VWgsdexkv18
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 01 2016, @09:54PM
It should be Wile E. Coyote ("Genius")