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20-Year Journey for 15-Minute Fall
He has spent two decades and nearly $20 million in a quest to fly to the upper reaches of the atmosphere with a helium balloon, just so he can jump back to earth again. Now, Michel Fournier says, he is ready at last.
Depending on the weather, Fournier, a 64-year-old retired French army officer, will attempt what he is calling Le Grand Saut (The Great Leap) on Sunday from the plains of northern Saskatchewan.
He intends to climb into the pressurized gondola of the 650-foot balloon, which resembles a giant jellyfish, and make a two-hour journey to 130,000 feet. At that altitude, almost 25 miles up, Fournier will see both the blackness of space and the curvature of the earth.
Then he plans to step out of the capsule, wearing only a special space suit and a parachute, and plunge in a mere 15 minutes, experiencing weightlessness along the way.
If successful, Fournier will fall longer, farther and faster than anyone in history. Along the way, he can accomplish other firsts, by breaking the sound barrier and records that have stood for nearly 50 years.
“It’s not a question of the world records,” Fournier wrote via e-mail through an interpreter on Friday from his base in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. “What is important are what the results from the jump will bring to the safety of the conquest of space. However, the main question that is being asked today by all scientists is, can a man survive when crossing the sound barrier?”
In the past two weeks, Fournier’s 40-person team has assembled at the launch site, about 90 miles northwest of Saskatoon. The remote Canadian plains were picked after French authorities denied permission because of safety concerns.
Fournier faces plenty of perils. Above 40,000 feet, there is not enough oxygen to breathe in the frigid air. He could experience a fatal embolism. And 12 miles up, should his protective systems fail, his blood could begin to boil because of the air pressure, said Henri Marotte, a professor of physiology at the University of Paris and a member of Fournier’s team.
“If the human body were exposed at very high altitude, the loss of consciousness is very fast, in five seconds,” Marotte said. “Brain damage, in three or four minutes.”
Fournier’s gondola will be sealed, pressurized and equipped with oxygen. He will be in communication with a ground crew on the climb and will be tracked by G.P.S. He will wear a pressure suit and a sealed helmet supplied with oxygen.
“Another problem is decompression sickness,” Marotte said. “You have the same problem with nitrogen as divers who go too quickly from deep to the surface.”
To prevent this, which underwater divers call the bends, Fournier will breathe pure oxygen for two to three hours before liftoff.
Marotte said Fournier would be in free fall for about eight minutes. He would exceed the speed of sound within the first 40 seconds and eventually approach 1,000 miles an hour. His fall would slow at lower altitudes amid increasing wind resistance. His parachute is designed to open at around 5,000 feet.
The gondola will be released from the balloon and is equipped with three parachutes to allow for a safe landing.
Fournier’s jump can set four records: fastest free fall, longest free fall, highest altitude for a human balloon flight and highest parachute jump. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, which bills itself as the world’s air-sports organization, sanctions jumps like this.
Fournier has attempted his stunt twice, but technical and weather-related problems foiled the efforts before he left the ground. The most recent attempt, in 2003, failed when his balloon ruptured before takeoff.
Fournier has been preparing physically and mentally for this moment for years, making more than 8,000 jumps and setting a French record from an altitude of more than 39,000 feet, his highest jump to date. By comparison, a standard sky dive is from 12,000 to 13,000 feet.
"Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
The French government deemed it too dangerous. And the Canadians said No worries? Hmm Sounds like they want to sit around in lawn chairs drink beer and watch the Frenchy burn into the earth. Wish I was allowed into Canada I'd like to see that.
Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk, I'm a woman's man, no time to talk. .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy3LM5_-i1Q&feature=related
Yeah, I was thinking along similar lines--won't the friction make him mighty hot, if not burn? (Hope he does it at night!) And the decompression thing would be on the way up--not down (maybe I just didn't read carefully enough). They did say something about pressure making his blood boil--it would, of course, be lack of pressure (though if he gets hot enough coming in, blood could boil then too, I suppose!) I would also guess that breaking the sound barrier wouldbe hard on a person too--sort of like hitting a wall--he'd be going about a mile every five seconds (about 720 mph?) if my mental calcs are correct! Kids, don't try this at home!
Bet I aint the first to call him a French Fry!
Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk, I'm a woman's man, no time to talk. .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy3LM5_-i1Q&feature=related
I think he's trying to beat an American record that was set by NASA during the 60s.
Notice that he's doing it out west, not in Quebec - I think they're always willing to watch a Frenchman attempt suicide, might even be willing to help.
That sure sounds like a good reason to waste a ton of money.Retired until my next job.
I want to see the view from his helmet cam when he looks up out of the crater he's gonna make in the earth and see all those Canadians looking down at him holding a beer in their right hand shaking their head.
Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk, I'm a woman's man, no time to talk. .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy3LM5_-i1Q&feature=related
Update ...
NORTH BATTLEFORD - It's all about the pictures, according to Michel Fournier's team.
With foreboding grey clouds looming over Saskatchewan early Monday morning, there was no point for the French skydiving adventurer to prepare for a 40-kilometre plunge toward the Earth, his spokesperson said at a press conference Monday afternoon.
"The beauty of this whole experiment, this whole quest - it's not just a question of whether a man can survive (travelling at) Mach 1.3," Francine Gittins said Monday. "It's also a question for all of us to see what it's like."
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Michel Fournier
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Fournier, a 64-year-old former army colonel and paratrooper, has dreamed for two decades of breaking four world records by riding in a pressurized capsule buoyed by a massive helium balloon to 40 kilometres above Earth. There, he will open the door of his silver capsule and lean out, attempting the world's highest skydive, loftiest manned balloon flight and the longest and fastest freefall.
Early Monday morning, Fournier's crew of nearly 50 people unpacked a massive helium balloon - 124 metres in diameter - on a runway at the North Battleford airport. At 5 a.m., they brought out Fournier's pressurized capsule on a crane, and by 6:30, Fournier was sitting inside it breathing pure oxygen to stave off decompression sickness. But his window of opportunity closed when winds picked up before Fournier had breathed enough oxygen.
The super jump is now rescheduled for early Tuesday morning.
When Fournier dives, an ultra-powerful camera from the Clay Centre for Science and Technology in Massachusetts will photograph the arc of his fall.
Michel Chevalet, a member of Fournier's team, said capturing those pictures is a crucial part of this science experiment.
In French, Chevalet said the Clay centre images will reveal what angle Fournier falls at and whether he spins, twists or tumbles. Fournier may not be able to explain this over his radio, or remember after the jump, should he fall unconscious, Gittins said.
"If we cannot have images, we are losing too much information by sending him up there," Gittins translated into English for Chevalet.
These images could prove critical should an astronaut ever try to flee a troubled spacecraft by skydiving to Earth, Gittins said.
Although reporters and a few spectators were at the airport by 3 a.m. Monday, about 50 vehicles had gathered by 8 a.m. and onlookers filled the space behind the fence about 150 metres from Fournier's prospective launch site.
Two small white weather balloons on a string bobbed in wind while Fournier's crew milled about the tarmac.
His team scrubbed the launch when the wind persisted at about 17 km/h.
Chevaler said to control the balloon's launch, the wind needs to be either travelling in one direction at less than 14 km/h or, if it comes in uneven gusts, it must be less than 7.2 km/h.
The team insists the weather forecast for today is "ideal," with sunny skies and little wind.
"We'll be more than ready tomorrow because this was a great rehearsal," Gittins said earlier at the airport as workers moved the equipment back to a hangar.
The crew has just one chance to fill the 600-cubic-metre balloon with nine canisters of compressed helium waiting in a tractor trailer.
Despite some reports saying technical problems halted the launch, Gittins said the equipment functioned perfectly during Monday's attempt. When questioned later, Fournier added the oxygen system is working fine in the gondola for his trip to the edge of the stratosphere.
Onlookers who want a glimpse at Fournier once again attempting to make history will have to be at the North Battleford airport by 4 a.m. today, Gittins said.
On Monday, Spencer Bossaer, 12, of Kitscoty, Alta., was one of the first spectators to arrive with his dad and brother, hoping to glimpse that feat. He'd been researching Fournier all weekend and was eager to see the balloon and the plunge.
"He's also proving something in history," Bossaer said. "It will be something to watch this morning."
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"Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
Chickend out eh?
Ghey unicorns????
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-VBpLQSPD8&feature=related