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Man set to jump from edge of space, live now.

Won't breaking the sound barrier possibly cause him a lot of trauma? Fighter jets have that little needle extending from the nose to cause the shock wave to "miss" the rest of the aircraft.

sonicwave.jpeg
 
not sure of any of the science behind it, but he's got some uber space suit on that I would assume will protect him somehow
 
Whoa! Thought he was dead for a second when he was rag dolling.
Me too. I wonder if the first thought that went through his head when he landed safely was, "I can't believe I'm still alive?"

He's made a couple of test dives from pretty high up before this one. Congrats to the lunatic.
 
Won't breaking the sound barrier possibly cause him a lot of trauma? Fighter jets have that little needle extending from the nose to cause the shock wave to "miss" the rest of the aircraft.

The shock waves are much smaller when there's almost no air.
 
The shock waves are much smaller when there's almost no air.

Yeah, I realized that while watching. They mentioned that he wouldn't be able to control his position until the air thickened up. Dude got to something around 750mph according to the numbers they were showing while he was going down! Really unbelievable. My kid was mesmerized and sat through about 30min of checks before the guy jumped out. When my wife got home he ran up and told her about it. I was surprised he was so into it.
 
23 miles is not the edge of space.

USAF definition--The US Air Force defines the atmosphere-space boundary at 81 km.
FAI definition--The Federation Aeronautique Internationale defines the atmosphere-space boundary at 100 km. As of the end of 2004, 437 people have been this high or higher (according to Encyclopedia Astronautica). Several governments use an altitude at or near this in regulating space activities.
When you can orbit the Earth--where atmospheric drag is low enough to allow a satellite to complete an orbit; this depends on the characteristics of the satellite and the condition of the atmosphere. About 120 to 150 km is typical.
When air molecules are not gravitational bound to the Earth--this is the beginning of the exosphere and is 300 to 600 km high, depending on solar activity.
Where you say it does--in 1976 the nations of Columbia, Equador, Brazil, Congo, Zaire, Kenya, Uganda, and Indonesia claimed sovereignty to an altitude of 35,862 km. The UN rejected these claims in 1980.

I'm going with the air molecules not being gravitationally bound to the Earth, and just to be safe I will go with the farthest distance.
As soon as I see some doofus jump from 600 km, I'll watch.
 
I was doing my best impression of Marvin, I mean Wet Blanket.

I did good right?

Besides, I was waiting for the usual suspects to come ruin it but they must have been busy ruining other threads, and I'm the fill-in in emergencies.
 
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