In 2012, who became the first man to travel faster than the speed of sound without vehicular power when he jumped from a helium balloon at a height of approximately 24 miles?
"World Air Sports Federation was 135,889.108 feet (41.419000 km; 25.7365735 mi).[2] The balloon used for the feat was manufactured by the Balloon Facility of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Hyderabad, India. Eustace in his pressure suit hung tethered under the balloon, without the kind of capsule used by Felix Baumgartner. Eustace started his fall by using an explosive device to separate from the helium balloon. The previous altitude record for a manned balloon flight was set at 39.045 kilometers on October 14, 2012 by Felix Baumgartner breaking a record of 34.7 kilometers on May 4, 1961 by Malcolm Ross"
"human to do so without any form of engine power. Measurements show Baumgartner also broke two other world records. With a final altitude of , Baumgartner broke the unofficial record for the highest manned balloon flight of previously set by Nicholas Piantanida. He also broke the record for the highest altitude jump, set in 1960 by retired USAF Colonel Joseph Kittinger, who was Baumgartner's mentor and capsule communicator at mission control. These claims were verified by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI). Baumgartner's jump was 65 years, to the day, after Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier for the first time"
"and without any external help or assistance. He covered the distance of more than 17,408 km (9400 nautical miles) on the Turgoyak (K9) rowboat in just 162 days. On 23 July 2016, Konyukhov became the second person to circumnavigate the world in a hybrid hot-air helium balloon. American Steve Fossett is the only other person to have completed the feat, having done so in 2002 on his sixth attempt. Konyukhov took ""just over 11 days"", as opposed to Fossett's 13 days. Konyukhov announced his intention to challenge Fossett's record in September 2015, although the idea had ""first captured [his] imagination"
"around the world on 3 July 2002 on his sixth attempt, in 320 h 33 min. Fedor Konyukhov flew solo round the world on his first attempt in a hybrid hot-air/helium balloon from 11 to 23 July 2016 for a round-the world time of 272h 11m, awaiting official confirmation as the new record. A hot air balloon for manned flight uses a single-layered, fabric gas bag (lifting ""envelope""), with an opening at the bottom called the mouth or throat. Attached to the envelope is a basket, or gondola, for carrying the passengers. Mounted above the basket and centered in the"
"device to separate from the helium balloon. His descent to Earth lasted 4 minutes 27 seconds and stretched nearly with peak speeds exceeding , setting new world records for the highest free-fall jump and total free-fall distance . However, because Eustace's jump involved a drogue parachute, while Baumgartner's did not, their vertical speed and free-fall distance records remain in different categories. Unlike Baumgartner, Eustace, a twin-engine-jet pilot, was not widely known as a daredevil prior to his jump. Alan Eustace Robert Alan Eustace is an American computer scientist who served as Senior Vice President of Knowledge at Google. Since October"
"Red Bull Stratos Red Bull Stratos was a space diving project involving Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner. On 14 October 2012, Baumgartner flew approximately into the stratosphere over New Mexico, United States, in a helium balloon before free falling in a pressure suit and then parachuting to Earth. The total jump, from leaving the capsule to landing on the ground, lasted approximately ten minutes. While the free fall was initially expected to last between five and six minutes, Baumgartner deployed his parachute after 4 minutes and 19 seconds. Reaching —Baumgartner broke the sound barrier on his descent, thus becoming the first"
"high density altitude, and mountainous terrain."" Notes Further reading Steve Fossett James Stephen ""Steve"" Fossett (April 22, 1944 – September 3, 2007) was an American businessman and a record-setting aviator, sailor, and adventurer. He was the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world in a balloon. He made his fortune in the financial services industry and was best known for many world records, including five nonstop circumnavigations of the Earth: as a long-distance solo balloonist, as a sailor, and as a solo flight fixed-wing aircraft pilot. A fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Explorers Club, Fossett"
"and Victor Prather in a balloon launched from the deck of the in the Gulf of Mexico. The altitude record for an unmanned balloon is 53.0 kilometers. It was reached by a balloon manufactured by Fujikura Parachute with a volume of 60 thousand cubic metres, launched in May 2002 from Sanriku, Iwate, Japan. This is the greatest height ever obtained by an atmospheric vehicle. Only rockets, rocket planes, and ballistic projectiles have flown higher. In 2015, pilots Leonid Tiukhtyaev and Troy Bradley arrived safely in Baja California, Mexico after a journey of 10,711 km. The two men, originally from Russia"
"Project Excelsior Project Excelsior was a series of parachute jumps made by Joseph Kittinger of the United States Air Force in 1959 and 1960 from helium balloons in the stratosphere. The purpose was to test the Beaupre multi-stage parachute system intended to be used by pilots ejecting from high altitude. In one of these jumps Kittinger set world records for the highest parachute jump, the longest parachute drogue fall and the fastest speed by a human through the atmosphere. The record for fastest speed by a human through the atmosphere is now held by Felix Baumgartner of the Red Bull"
"and was a finalist at the 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. The book was reviewed by Parade. Bird spoke at the 2016 global climate summit, COP22, in Marrakech, Morocco, and discussed climate change and extreme weather with Jesse Ventura on Ventura’s television show. John Bird (scientist) John Clifford Bird (born April 11, 1955) is a Canadian engineer, scientist, and journalist. Bird’s research has included laser physics, atmospheric physics, and materials in microgravity. He broke the world altitude record for hang gliding by launching from a helium balloon at 35,000 ft., and spent a year at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole"
"2002, he became the first person to fly around the world alone, nonstop in any kind of aircraft. He launched the 10-story high balloon ""Spirit of Freedom"" from Northam, Western Australia on June 19, 2002 and returned to Australia on July 3, 2002, subsequently landing in Queensland. Duration and distance of this solo balloon flight was 13 days, 8 hours, 33 minutes (14 days 19 hours 50 minutes to landing), 20,626.48 statute miles (33,195.10 km). The balloon dragged him along the ground for 20 minutes at the end of the flight. Only the capsule survived the landing; it was taken"
"9, 2012, but was aborted due to adverse weather; subsequently the capsule was launched instead on October 14. Baumgartner's feat also marked the 65th anniversary of U.S. test pilot Chuck Yeager's successful attempt to break the sound barrier in an aircraft. Baumgartner landed in eastern New Mexico after jumping from a world record 128,100 feet (39,045 m), or 24.26 miles, and broke the sound barrier as he traveled at speeds up to 833.9 mph (1342 km/h or Mach 1.26). In the press conference after his jump, it was announced he was in freefall for 4 minutes, 18 seconds, the second"
"a 40,814 km (25,361 mi) flight lasting 19 days, 21 hours and 55 minutes. The altitude record for an unmanned balloon is 53.0 kilometres (173,882 ft), reached with a volume of 60,000 cubic metres. The balloon was launched by JAXA on 25 May 2002 from Iwate Prefecture, Japan. This is the greatest height ever obtained by an atmospheric vehicle. Only rockets, rocket planes, and ballistic projectiles have flown higher. In 2015, the two pilots Leonid Tiukhtyaev and Troy Bradley arrived safely in Baja California, Mexico after a journey of 10,711 km. The two men, originally from Russia and the United"
". In the free-fall stage, he reached a top speed of 614 mph (988 km/h or 274 m/s), or Mach 0.8. According to ""Guinness World Records"", Yevgeni Nikolayevich Andreyev (Soviet Union) held the official FAI record for the longest free-fall parachute jump (without drogue chute) after falling for 24,500 m (80,380 ft) from an altitude of 25,457 m (83,523 ft) near the city of Saratov, Russia on November 1, 1962, until broken by Felix Baumgartner in 2012. Felix Baumgartner broke Joseph Kittinger's record on October 14, 2012, with a jump from an altitude of 127,852 feet (38,969.3 m) and reaching"
"""Pacific Flyer"" recorded the fastest ground speed for a manned balloon at . The longest duration record was set by Swiss psychiatrist Bertrand Piccard, Auguste Piccard's grandson; and Briton Brian Jones, flying in the Breitling Orbiter 3. It was the first nonstop trip around the world by balloon. The balloon left Château-d'Oex, Switzerland, on March 1, 1999, and landed at 1:02 a.m. on March 21 in the Egyptian desert south of Cairo. The two men exceeded distance, endurance, and time records, traveling 19 days, 21 hours, and 55 minutes. Steve Fossett, flying solo, exceeded the record for briefest time traveling"
"have been the earliest hot air balloon flights in human history. Nott also pioneered the use of hybrid energy for lift, where solar power is a significant heat source, and in 1981 he crossed the English Channel. Julian Nott (balloonist) Julian Nott is a British balloonist who now lives in Santa Barbara, California, USA. He is known for his achievements in record-setting exploits. Nott has set 79 World ballooning Records and 96 British aviation records and is actively involved in developing balloons for flights at Solar System destinations, particularly Titan. He has flown a working prototype Titan balloon at minus"
"not carry a proper altimeter. On June 8, 2013 Joe Barbera, of La Center, WA launched a lawn chair with cluster balloons and recorded a new altitude record of . This is a pending world record being considered by Guinness Book of World Records Yoshikazu Suzuki departed from Lake Biwa in Japan on 23 November 1992 with 23 helium balloons. He was spotted by a Japanese coast guard aeroplane on 25 November 1992, located about 800 km offshore over the Pacific Ocean, at altitude between 2,500 and 4,000 m, and was never seen again. In April 2008, in Brazil, Roman"
"Steve Fossett James Stephen ""Steve"" Fossett (April 22, 1944 – September 3, 2007) was an American businessman and a record-setting aviator, sailor, and adventurer. He was the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world in a balloon. He made his fortune in the financial services industry and was best known for many world records, including five nonstop circumnavigations of the Earth: as a long-distance solo balloonist, as a sailor, and as a solo flight fixed-wing aircraft pilot. A fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Explorers Club, Fossett set more than one hundred records in five different"
"He launched from downtown Bombay, India, and landed south in Panchale. The previous record of had been set by Per Lindstrand on June 6, 1988 in Plano, Texas. During 1893 French scientist Jules Richard constructed sounding balloons. These unmanned balloons, carrying light, but very precise instruments, approached an altitude of 50,000 feet (15,240 meters). The U.S. (and for a while, the world) altitude record for unmanned balloons was (according to a 1991 edition of Guinness Book of World Records). The vehicle was a Winzen-Balloon with a volume of 1.35 million cubic metres, launched in October 1972 in Chico, California, USA."
"John Bird (scientist) John Clifford Bird (born April 11, 1955) is a Canadian engineer, scientist, and journalist. Bird’s research has included laser physics, atmospheric physics, and materials in microgravity. He broke the world altitude record for hang gliding by launching from a helium balloon at 35,000 ft., and spent a year at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station, which was documented in his book ""One Day, One Night: Portraits of the South Pole"". Bird’s career started as the youngest NASA-accredited journalist covering the Apollo 13 launch. Bird broke the world altitude record for hang gliding by piloting a hang glider from"
"different.' So I thought I'd tell you about a hero of Chris's: a man called Captain Joe Kittinger. In 1960, climbing into a foil balloon, Captain Joe ascended 32 kilometers into the stratosphere. And then, armed only with a parachute, he jumped out. He fell for four minutes and thirty-six seconds, reaching seven hundred and forty miles per hour before opening his parachute five kilometers above the Earth. It had never been done before, and it's never been done since. He did it just because he could. And that's why Chris loved him - because the thing about Chris was,"
"Nick Piantanida Nicholas John ""Nick"" Piantanida (August 15, 1932 – August 29, 1966) was an American amateur parachute jumper who reached 123,500 feet (37,642 meters, 23.39 miles) with his ""Strato Jump II"" balloon on February 2, 1966, flying a manned balloon higher than anyone before, a record that stood until Felix Baumgartner's flight on October 14, 2012. Piantanida was born August 15, 1932, and grew up in Union City, New Jersey. He had a younger brother, Vern. When Piantanida was 10 years old, he experimented with homemade parachutes, harnessing a stray neighborhood cat to one in a test drop off"
"project in May 2008, which would have seen him ascend to in a balloon and freefall to earth before opening his parachute at to go. In the process he was expected to attain a speed in freefall faster than the speed of sound, and reach speeds upward of . His freefall was expected to last 15 minutes. If successful, this would have broken records previously held by Joseph Kittinger, who set the previous parachute record by jumping from in 1960 (with a small parachute for stability) under Project Excelsior; and Eugene Andreyev from the Soviet Union, who jumped from in"
"Group sponsored some of Fossett's adventures. Steve Fossett was well known for his world records and adventures in balloons, sailboats, gliders, and powered aircraft. He was an aviator of exceptional breadth of experience. He wanted to become the first person to achieve a solo balloon flight around the world (finally succeeding on his sixth attempt, in 2002, becoming the first person to complete an uninterrupted and unrefueled solo circumnavigation of the world in ""any"" kind of aircraft). He set, with co-pilot Terry Delore, 10 of the 21 Glider Open records, including the first 2,000 km Out-and-Return, the first 1,500 km"
"volume, so they do not need to be so large, and they can also stay up for much longer than hot air balloons. First three pilots in each event (excluding handicapped events) were as follows (teammate in parentheses, where known): Distance: Comte Henry de La Vaulx FRA 1237 km, Jacques Balsan FRA 1222 km, Jacques Faure FRA 1183 km Duration: Jacques Balsan FRA 35:09, Comte de Castillon de Saint-Victor FRA 18:00, G. Hervieu FRA 17:51 Elevation: Jacques Balsan FRA 8417 m, Georges Juchmès FRA 6867 m, Comte Henry de la Vaulx FRA 6820 m Target without Stop: Comte Henri de"
"stratosphere, breaking Felix Baumgartner's 2012 world record. The launch-point for his jump was from an abandoned runway in Roswell, New Mexico, where he began his gas balloon-powered ascent early that morning. He reached a reported maximum altitude of , but the final number submitted to the World Air Sports Federation was . The balloon used for the feat was manufactured by the Balloon Facility of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Hyderabad, India. Eustace in his pressure suit hung tethered under the balloon, without the kind of capsule used by Felix Baumgartner. Eustace started his fall by using an explosive"
"Parker Liautaud Parker Liautaud (born August 12, 1994) is a polar adventurer and environmental campaigner. In 2013 he and explorer Doug Stoup completed the fastest human-powered trek from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole. Liautaud is the youngest man to walk to the South Pole without resupplies. He graduated from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. By the age of 17, Liautaud had undertaken three expeditions to the North Pole. At 19 years old, he led the Willis Resilience Expedition to the South Pole, a two-part Antarctic journey with Willis Group that included a 1900 km crossing of"
"current world record for a non-stop unassisted ocean row. Eruç completed a solo human-powered circumnavigation from 2007 to 2012, crossing the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans becoming the first person to row all three. From 22 December 2013 to 31 May 2014 Fyodor Konyukhov crossed Pacific Ocean starting in the Chilean port of Concón and finishing in Mooloolaba, Queensland, Australia without entering ports and without any external help or assistance. He covered the distance of more than 17408 km (9400 nautical miles) on the Turgoyak rowboat in just 162 days. On December 26, 2015, British-born Canadian, John Beeden, 53, became"
"year through its eight operations in Walt Disney World, San Diego Zoo Safari Park, Smoky Mountains & Irvine in the USA and Paris, Disneyland Paris and Parc du Petit Prince in France. On October 24, 2014, Alan Eustace, a former Google executive, made a jump from the stratosphere, a shepericarp ballon, breaking Felix Baumgartner's 2012 world record. The launch-point for his jump was from an abandoned runway in Roswell, New Mexico, where he began his balloon-powered ascent early that morning. He reached a reported maximum altitude of 135,908 feet (41.425 km; 25.7402 mi), but the final number submitted to the"
"altitude record for a manned balloon flight set by Prather and Ross in 1961 is still officially recognized by Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. three people have traveled higher into the stratosphere. Nicholas Piantanida (USA), claimed to have reached 123,800 feet (37,643 m) with his Strato Jump II balloon on February 2, 1966 and Felix Baumgartner, reached 128,100 feet (39 044.88 meters) on 14 October 2012 as part of the Red Bull Stratos project. In ballooning, as in mountain climbing, completing the descent by the same method is required to set a record. Piantanida did not claim the balloon altitude record because"
"dedicated on December 14, 2014. Joseph Kittinger Joseph William Kittinger II (born July 27, 1928) is a retired colonel in the United States Air Force and a USAF Command Pilot. Following his initial operational assignment in fighter aircraft, he participated in Project Manhigh and Project Excelsior in 1960, setting a world record for the highest skydive from a height greater than . He was also the first man to make a solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in a gas balloon, and the first man to fully witness the curvature of the Earth. Serving as a fighter pilot during the"
"Pierre Testu-Brissy Pierre Testu-Brissy (1770? – 1829) was a pioneering French balloonist who achieved fame for making many flights astride animals, particularly horses. Testu-Brissy made his first balloon ascent in 1785, and the first night ascent on 18 June 1786 in a hydrogen balloon. He made the world's first electrical observations on 18 June 1786 as he ascended into thunderclouds, and said that he drew remarkable discharges from the clouds by means of an iron rod, carried in the car. Testu-Brissy's first solo ascent was on 18 September 1791 from Paris. He subsequently undertook more than 50 flights in his"
"Hypersonic flight Hypersonic flight is flight through the atmosphere below about 90km at speeds above Mach 5, a speed where dissociation of air begins to become significant and high heat loads exist. The first manufactured object to achieve hypersonic flight was the two-stage Bumper rocket, consisting of a WAC Corporal second stage set on top of a V-2 first stage. On February 1949, at White Sands, the rocket reached a speed of 5,150 miles per hour, or approximately Mach 6.7. The vehicle, however, burned on atmospheric re-entry, and only charred remnants were found. In April 1961, Russian Major Yuri Gagarin"