![]() The temperatures at these altitudes could be fatal, too. Above 60,000 to 62,000 feet, a demarcation known as the Armstrong limit, “any fluids-even saliva-will boil because there’s no atmospheric pressure to keep it in a liquid state,” he explains. Above 62,000 feet, “either you need 100 percent oxygen, or you need to increase the pressure of the suit for the lungs to be able to move the oxygen into your veins,” he says. Maintaining pressure and temperature are the most important requirements of a suit like this, Urquieta Ordonez says. “The blood that normally needs to go to your brain to keep you awake and conscious will start going to your legs, and then you could technically pass out.” (Eustace used a drogue parachute to help stabilize his descent, but this method could become less reliable at higher altitudes.) Emmanuel Urquieta Ordonez, an assistant professor at Baylor University’s Department of Emergency Medicine and Center for Space Medicine in Houston, says. “If you start spinning really fast, then it’s like if you were inside a blender,” Dr. We’re Close to Finally Seeing Hyperspace.Video of the Moon From the North Pole? It's Fake.How James Webb Space Telescope Stays in Space.Test-dummy experiments conducted before Eustace’s flight revealed that a diver could enter a flat spin of 180 revolutions per minute. A space diver’s suit “would have to be a very, very rugged spacesuit,” says Erik Seedhouse, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida.įor starters, it would likely require its own propulsion capability, Seedhouse says, in order to properly orient the diver so they don’t begin to tumble out of control-something that could cause them to pass out or that could tear off an arm or leg. The pressurized spacesuits astronauts wear act as personal spaceships, with everything the astronaut needs to survive in the event of an emergency. Reaching greater heights requires rocket-powered flight-a challenging feat because the diver’s bailout would need to be timed for when the spacecraft reaches its apogee, the point in its orbit when it is farthest from Earth. ![]() But balloons can only go so high (roughly 135,000 feet) before the air becomes too thin for them to maintain their altitude. In the past, these high-altitude skydivers have used specialized hot air balloons to lift them into the stratosphere, the second layer of Earth’s atmosphere. ![]() Play icon The triangle icon that indicates to playįirst, you have to get there. So what would it actually take to skydive from space? So far, neither Eustace, Baumgartner, nor anyone else who has careened down from the heavens has made it anywhere near the boundary, which lies roughly 62 miles above Earth’s surface, or 327,360 feet. Joe Kittinger’s famous free-fall from 102,800 feet above Earth’s surface in 1960, adrenaline junkies have sought higher and higher altitudes from which to jump, inching ever closer to the Kármán line, or the boundary between our atmosphere and space. Let’s nerd out over it together-join Pop Mech Pro. During the four minute and 27 second plummet, the tech mogul reached speeds of over 800 miles per hour and shattered Red Bull stuntman Felix Baumgartner’s previous skydiving record, established just two years earlier. In 2014, Alan Eustace, then the senior vice president of knowledge at Google, dropped from a hot-air balloon floating 135,899 feet above Earth’s surface.
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