The Ultimate Skydive

by E.doc

To get the full effect of this article, you really have to watch the movie about Joe Kittinger. He was the first man to do a skydive jump that was so high up he was actually in space: 103,000 feet above the Earth.

The main reason for this was to see if the human body could withstand the shock of traveling faster than the speed of sound, with no protection other than a pressure suit. For all of those that don't know, the speed of sound is 343 meters/second, or rather about 768 miles/hour. When the sound barrier is broken, a phenomenon called a "sonic boom" is heard...very popular in the sixties when the government was working with high-speed aircraft. When it happened over our house back in 2003, the tremors were so intense they knocked me and my nephew to the ground and I thought we were being attacked by air-bombers.

The pressure suit is to keep your blood from boiling before you get to jump. The atmospheric pressure up there is so low, that your blood will literally start to boil in your veins if you were to be directly exposed to it. Turns out Kittinger had a leak in his suit near his right hand toward the beginning of his flight. He plays it off as no big deal, but the blood pooled there and made it a very, very uncomfortable ride.

Imagine hanging upside down on the monkey bars...for hours...