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[Flying Dice]

True enough, but when you see some subreddits dedicated to stuff that wouldn't fly even in /b/...

[Aklyon]

True enough, but when you see some subreddits dedicated to stuff that wouldn't fly even in /b/...

I think TB said is pretty well in one of his videos when someone has asked about /v/ or /r/gaming.

[Flying Dice]

True enough, but when you see some subreddits dedicated to stuff that wouldn't fly even in /b/...

To be fair, you can find a lot of those anywhere on the internet- reddit just makes it easier to find and follow those. Most people don't go there anyways.

Aaaanyways, (I'm thinking I should just reserve a post on the rage thread) my roommate was all kinds of pissed off this morning because the bathroom was being cleaned so he couldn't shower but never thought to use a shower on a different floor. At least, that's what I think he was pissed off about. It's still really hard to say with him.

Your dorm bathrooms get cleaned?

[NRDL]

In DF, I was mucking around in the arena tester, and I was playing as a human male vampire vs. a human male vampire, both unskilled.  I grabbed the other guy in the head, threw him, and he promptly fell on me and crushed my guy's brain.

 

[RedKing]

Dunno if anybody had heard about this, but there's this dude who's going to try a 23-mile freefall jump today. He's riding a mammoth freaking balloon (made of material 1/3 the thickness of a Ziploc bag) up to 120,000 feet altitude, inside a pressurized capsule while wearing a modified spacesuit. Then he'll open the capsule, while high enough that the sky will be black and he can actually see the curvature of the earth...and he'll jump. And he'll drop (with a live camera feed) for nearly 23 miles before opening the parachute.

The cool thing is that it's not just for "the Xxxxtreeme" nature of it (despite the Red Bull sponsorship), but is actually doing some scientific good, both in the balloon (which has some potential space elevator applications) and in the modified suit, parachute and capsule (which could provide information to design another type of escape capsule for the ISS and other LEO vessels, on a much smaller and cheaper scale than a full Soyuz capsule).

[Aklyon]

First thought: WTF do people like jumping from the near the edge of space so much for.
Second thought: Science!!

[Frumple]

How... how long is it going to take to drop that far? Long enough to take a nap? I mean... what do you do during a twenty three mile drop? Sounds... somewhat boring, really. At least the middle bits. The beginning and end, less so.

[kaijyuu]

My random guess would be about 10 minutes. Sky diving doesn't last very long at all.

[RedKing]

Dunno....apparently they're hoping he will break the sound barrier on his way down. They're not entirely sure what breaking the sound barrier will do to a PERSON (i.e. one not inside of a vehicle breaking the sound barrier) but then that's why the modified space suit. Pretty sure it would be impossible to breath at that speed.

[The Darkling Wolf]

Wasn't there a dude who did the same jump from ~4 miles lower years ago?

[GlyphGryph]

you fall about 2 miles a minute at terminal velocity - though that's actually a bit less the higher up you go, let's pretend it average out with the time it takes to reach that speed.

So...
About 11-12 minutes of freefall, max, and then (I assume) a bit of parachute time, which takes longer. Though that may be more of an upper bound than an actual estimate, and the spacesuit could be significantly more dense than a person, giving him a higher terminal velocity even at normal heights.

[Nadaka]

Terminal velicity is based on the density of the air and the cross section of the aerodynamic qualities of the falling object. At 23 miles, the air is MUCH less dense, and terminal velocity will be many times higher.

[RedKing]

Wasn't there a dude who did the same jump from ~4 miles lower years ago?

The current record holder is a former Air Force Colonel who jumped from 102,800 feet back in 1960. He's also an adviser on this mission.

Since they're streaming this live (and a bunch of other news sites are picking up the feed too), I really hope they show this to kids in the classroom.
You want kids interested in science? Don't show them a frog being dissected, show them a dude skydiving from spaaaaaaaace.

[GlyphGryph]

Which is why I considered that the max, rather than an actual estimate.

I know neither the terminal velocity at those heights, how long it will take him to reach them, or how long it will take him to slow down to terminal velocity at lower altitudes. But I know he /can't/ take longer than 12 minutes to finish his free fall.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The thought is that breaking the sound barrier with that little protection would normally have the potential to be fatal, but because there's so little air at that height he should be fine. Should.