Two Scary Incidents Almost Forced Felix Baumgartner To Abort His Mission

[applegrove]

Two Scary Incidents Almost Forced Felix Baumgartner To Abort His Mission

by Dina Spector at Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/felix-baumgartner-breaks-the-sound-barrier-2012-10

"SNIP.............................................

First, the heater in his visor wasn't working. This caused to his visor to fog up when he exhaled.

"On our checklist of things we had this as a mission abort. If you cannot see anything you cannot leave the capsule,” he said.

Second, immediately after bunny-hopping off the capsule Baumgartner "was supposed to get himself into a delta position — head down, arms back - as soon as possible," explains the BBC.

Instead, the Austrian went into a flat spin and video footage shows him tumbling multiple times.

............................................SNIP"

[applegrove]

1. I still think he is absolutely bonkers and refused to watch him live.

[gateley]

2. Watch the footage now that we know he's fine -- amazing!

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

5. Was glued to it. That guy's got steel balls.

[Xipe Totec]

3. I did watch live. And I have no regets

The guy was awesome.

[enlightenment]

4. Was wowed by this today -

definitely not as wowed with this 'report'.

"Two Scary Incidents Almost Forced Felix Baumgartner To Abort His Mission"

Two of them. The face visor heater was one - and yes, had that not resolved, he would have been able to abort the mission.

Having jumped off the capsule, though, how was he supposed to 'abort' after failing to immediately get into the proper head down, arms back position? Just stop and say - "whoops"?

Kudos to Mr. Baumgartner and all the team who helped make this happen . . . and a dictionary for the reporter, since she clearly doesn't quite understand the word "abort".

sigh.

[petronius]

6. The paragraph after the snip explains that:

Baumgartner could have pulled his stabilization parachute at this point, but at the cost of gaining enough speed to break the sound barrier.

He would have had to give up on (abort) his quest for a speed record, but could have improved his chance of landing safely.

(Of course, that paragraph is poorly written as well, so your lack of wow is not misplaced...)

[longship]

7. How does one abort at 127+K feet?

Easy! You jump off and land a while later.

[HereSince1628]

15. The abort would have meant coming down in the capsule...

which detaches from the bag of the balloon and has it's own parachute system.

[treestar]

8. What's to see up there?

The only way is down.

I heard him saying while he was falling that the visor was fogged up. The people in mission control commented that he would soon get into warmer temperatures.

[dems_rightnow]

9. "I am falling to Earth in a flat spin"

"Roger that, abort mission."

"Ummmm, how do I do that?"

[sabrina 1]

10. 'Open your parachute'!

That would have aborted his mission but would have made him safe.

[Buns_of_Fire]

13. He was carrying only about six minutes worth of air to breathe, so maybe not.

Opening his parachute way up there might have slowed his descent to the point where he'd run out of bottled air before he got low enough to survive without it.

Just a guess. I know nothing about skydiving, and I imagine I'll keep it that way. I DO know it takes guts to jump out of a perfectly good aircraft, and he's got enough for at least ten people.

[PD Turk]

17. I think

I think they meant for him to pop the drogue chute, which would have helped stabilize him but might have dashed his chance at breaking the sound barrier as it would have also slowed his descent a bit.

[Buns_of_Fire]

11. I can think of two things that would've caused ME to abort the mission:

1. "I'm supposed to ride this thing how high?"

2. "And then jump out of it?"

[oswaldactedalone]

12. ^^^ LOL

[IDemo]

14. Maybe a third thing?

Last edited Mon Oct 15, 2012, 10:07 AM - Edit history (1)

He was obviously struggling to respond to the check list and sounded downright groggy. Possibly because of hypoxia?

[Odin2005]

16. I was scared when he started tumbling.