“I don’t think the answer’s yes.”. From that height â in the area between the Earth and space â you can glimpse the curvature of the planet. Eustace has spent enough time thinking about space rescue to conclude that it is at least plausible. If Iron Man had a real-world counterpart, it would certainly be Alan. Google exec, Alan Eustace, has broken the 128,100-ft (39,045-m) high-altitude skydive record set by Felix Baumgartner in October, 2012 (with much less fanfare). The highest skydive ever â old record has been broken by Google Vice President Alan Eustace! Alan Eustace, a senior vice president at Google, hit supersonic speeds as he fell from more than 25 miles (40 kilometers) above New Mexico, smashing the altitude record that Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner set two years ⦠That’s partly how he persuaded serious space engineers to join his team. California Do Not Sell My Info |, The Time a Stolen Helicopter Landed on the White House Lawn, The Gripen Aims to Be the iPhone of Fighter Aircraft, This New AR App is the Coolest Way to Learn About Mars, This Intriguing Signal From Alpha Centauri May (or May Not) Be a Planet, Reaching the Singularity May be Humanityâs Greatest and Last Accomplishment, A Fleet of Air Taxis Is Coming to Central Florida by 2025, The Long, Frustrating Saga of the Mole on Mars, The National Air and Space Museumâs New Take on Lunar Exploration, He Was the Fifth Man on the Moon, But That Wasnât His Most Famous Flight. In a harrowing plunge from the stratosphere, a Google executive broke the world record for the highest-altitude skydive today (Oct. 24). During the 4 minutes and 27 seconds of his un-parachuted fall, he was mostly focused on making minute adjustments to his elbows that helped him stay on course and avoid a dangerous spin. Eustace imagines something akin to the small, disposable reentry vehicles that NASA and the European Space Agency have proposed as a means to get experiment payloads down from orbit. On his record-breaking descent, Eustace fell faster than the speed of sound. We all remember the day in 2014 that he quietly beat out Felix Baumgartnerâs much-ballyhooed Red Bull Stratos jump for sheer ⦠For over an hour before he went up, Eustace inhaled pure oxygen, purging his blood of nitrogen. In 2014, computer scientist and Google Executive Alan Eustace skydove from over 135,000 feet above the earth, breaking Felix Baumgartner's record. And once he detached from the balloon, Eustace’s suit became his only way home. The two hatched a plan to develop, test, and prove a totally new system by way of a spectacular, record-breaking space jump. Eustace, at the time a chief Google engineer and pilot, plunged 25 miles from the stratosphere down to Earth on October 24, 2014. These inflatable structures—which have gotten as far as preliminary testing—would become hard as rock once filled with gas, and can be coated in ablative material that dissipates heat as it burns off. His team drove around the desert desperately trying to find the jumper, and ultimately had to rely on a passing helicopter to spot him. This was a scientific project, StratEx(Stratosphere Explorer), which aimed to create a spacesuit and system that would ⦠The StratEx team solved the problem ingeniously. Google executive Alan Eustace set a new mark Friday when he fell from an altitude of more than 135,000 feet, plummeting in a free-fall for about 5 minutes before deploying his parachute. One of the most beautiful places on Earth â or maybe above Earth, depending on how you look at it.". The project was not without difficulties. An avid skydiver and pilot, Eustace had in late 2010 just finished a pet project proving that one could skydive from a Gulfstream 550 business jet (someone happened to ask him if it was possible, so he spent several years figuring out how to prove that it was, by doing itâthis is something of a pattern in his life). Terms of Use The idea, says Eustace, is that “you just essentially pump up your reentry vehicle,” climb on, and fire a small retrorocket to point yourself home. Skydive from edge of space beats world record Close Google executive Alan Eustace has broken the world altitude record for a parachute jump by leaping from 135,890 feet (41,419 metres). Alan Eustace's jump was recorded from the height of 135,889 feet (41.41 kilometers), making his the highest jump ever, topping even the red bull highest skydive. He released from a helium balloon near the top of the stratosphere and fell at 820 miles per hour, 25% faster than the speed of sound! He started looking into it, scribbling on napkins and asking around at various space tech companies. Read More: An Arizona balloon company is working on a technology to make space satellites obsolete. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, the body that officially documents aerospace records, requires a two percent margin to beat a previous record, so the team set their sights on around 8,000 feet higher than Baumgartner’s jump. Watch Alan Eustace jump video. He began by calling MacCallum, who at the time (October 2011) was running Paragon Space Development Corporation, a contractor specializing in life support systems for extreme environments. Could the innovations in the StratEx system someday lead to a bailout system for astronauts? "I feel like I want to know everything I can about that problem, or that solution, or I want to play different solutions through and try to see what the right solution to a problem is.". The chute deployed early, while the air was still thin, and the boom kept it away from Eustace, and all without using any actuated parts. Give a Gift, © 2021 Air & Space Magazine. With the rise of space interest in many fields, Pacific Spaceflight partnered with Earth and Space Explorations LLC has adapted its low cost, high function, pressure suit to open high altitude skydiving at an affordable cost. The highest skydive ever attempted was by Alan Eustace at the amazing height of 135,890 feet! It had two configurations: Stay attached or let go. “But at the time we didn’t understand that.”. His team has since formed a company called World View, which is working to replace the world's satellites with balloons called "stratollites." He didn't have much time to enjoy the view. Even the ground tests produced a few surprises. The idea was to get rid of all the extra baggage used by previous visitors to the stratosphere—namely, the vehicles they rode in for the ascent. ALAN EUSTACE (USA) self-funded a project to find innovative ways to simplify and reduce the costs of jumping from space. All of which he did, before happily setting off to build his spacesuit. “If it was me, I wouldn’t even use a capsule,” Eustace said. Afterward, Eustace had nothing but praise for the suit, which he called “the most protective environment you’ll ever see.”. All previous balloon ventures had relied on capsules or gondolas to convey people to the stratosphere, but Eustace believed the trip could be made simpler. Get it now on Libro.fm using the button below. In doing so, he set a world record for the highest free fall jump on October 24, 2014 over Roswell, New Mexico. Google executive Alan Eustace broke the sound barrier and set several skydiving records over the southern New Mexico desert early Friday after taking a big leap from the edge of space. And when his handlers had trouble dumping Eustace out the back of an airplane during test jumps, they bolted roller blades to his chest plate to make it easier to get him out the door without damaging the suit. “The thought was that if the suit is good enough to go down, let’s make it good enough to go up,” says MacCallum. Google executive Alan Eustace has broken the sound barrier and set several skydiving records over the southern New Mexico desert after taking a big leap from the edge of space. Eustace wore just a spacesuit and helmet during his endeavor, though he deployed a life-saving parachute for the final 10,000 feet. Alan has been training with weights to improve his strength to better handle the rigors of the jump. For now, he’s satisfied with that.