New Skydiving Record Attempt

There's a 20 second delay on the feed in case he melts or explodes when he jumps out of the balloon so those hoping to see it all go wrong will be disappointed.
 
He's about halfway up, I wonder if he took a book with him to pass the time.

What would you read before taking a potential death plunge?

Has to be something you can read in 2 hours, I don't think he has time for war and peace.
 
He's now passed the previous record height so when he jumps it will be a record as long as he lands.

Does a successful landing count towards the record? If he faceplants upon landing does he lose points from the artistic judge?

As for the book I've got a choice of 2, Naked Skydiving by Jordon Schaffer or Dropzone by Andy McNab
 
The balloon seems to be not reading from the same page, it was supposed to come to a gradual halt around 120,000 feet. It was ascending at around 1000ft per min suddenly it has jumped to 2000ft per min.

See you on Mars!
 
FB said:
Today is the same day Chuck Jeager broke the sound barrier in the X1 in 1947. Quite an appropriate parallel.
Click to expand

I see no comparison, frankly. when Chuck broke the sound barrier, as far as anyone knew the wings would fall off the plane, or he would lose control due to compressibility effects. This guy had no such concerns as all he had to do was fall, protected by a spacesuit developed over decades.

To me, it was a ho-hum, "look-at-me" moment which was done to generate revenue for the clown, rather than to push the frontiers of science, as Chuck's did.
 
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