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About the Author - Ryan
"Can The Phils Do It Again?"

Ryan
Columbia, SC
Male 34 years old

About Me:
Born and raised in Delaware. Somehow, I've ended up in South Carolina. Life-long Phillies fan. In my "spare time" I work at THE USC for football and basketball games . (University of South Carolina for those who are west coast biased.) GO GAMECOCKS!
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Michel Fournier's Spacedive
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Crazy French Dude To Skydive From Space - Expect the X-Games To Add Event Soon
by Ryan
>7 days ago

 

Wow.  This is completely nuts. 

Michel Fournier, a 64-year-old retired French army officer, will attempt what he is calling Le Grand Saut (The Great Leap) on Sunday from the plains of northern Saskatchewan.

He intends to climb into the pressurized gondola of the 650-foot balloon, which resembles a giant jellyfish, and make a two-hour journey to 130,000 feet. At that altitude, almost 25 miles up, Fournier will see both the blackness of space and the curvature of the earth. He will experience weightlessness.

While I imagine it would be a pretty wild ride, there are some serious questions as to whether he will actually survive the "fall".  Even though he insists this isn't about the world records he would break (there are at least four of them - not including the "World's Bravest -or Craziest- Old Guy"), I can't really see why anyone would want to do this. 

 

Oh yeah, and there has been $20 million spent on this "adventure" already.  I guess at least he won't be using gasoline - that would have jacked the project up to at least $30 million.


20-Year Journey for 15-Minute Fall [NY Times]
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105 days ago
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The alternate title for the article could be: "Old Man Yells At Cloud... Literally!"
 
105 days ago
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You know whats the procedure when sky diving?
S-squat
P-pray
L-leap
A-AAAAHHHHH!!!!
T-touch down


no way im doing sky diving
 
104 days ago
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http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=5678fe22-2a63-4e63-ba83-cd33e903c7dc

 

Apparently it's off until tomorrow morning.  Should be interesting.......

 
104 days ago
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Ryan wrote:

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=5678fe22-2a63-4e63-ba83-cd33e903c7dc

 

Apparently it's off until tomorrow morning.  Should be interesting.......

Hmmm. Hopefully by then, their might be video of this. Maybe they can hook up a helment cam on him for us to go along for the ride.
 
104 days ago
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Jubanator14 wrote:
Hmmm. Hopefully by then, their might be video of this. Maybe they can hook up a helment cam on him for us to go along for the ride.
I think even a helmet cam of this might terrify me.  Dude is effin crazy but props to him if he can pull it off.
 
104 days ago
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Jubanator14 wrote:
Hmmm. Hopefully by then, their might be video of this. Maybe they can hook up a helment cam on him for us to go along for the ride.

Well, a majority of the article talks about how they're recording all of this.  So I imagine some video will be out there.

 

I wonder what the odds are that he doesn't survive the fall.  They've mentioned it a few times, but not at great length.

 

I agree.  It's crazy.

 
103 days ago
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Well - not a good sign for Fournier.  Apparently the balloon took off this morning without him. 

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080527.wskydive0527/BNStory/National/home

 

 

The real question is this:  How does a retired military officer have over $13 million to invest in such a project?  He must be one heck of a fundraiser.

 

I wonder if it's going to be the end of the absurd drive to be the first person to kill himself by traveling travel the speed of sound.
 
103 days ago
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Ryan wrote:

Well - not a good sign for Fournier.  Apparently the balloon took off this morning without him. 

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080527.wskydive0527/BNStory/National/home

 

 

The real question is this:  How does a retired military officer have over $13 million to invest in such a project?  He must be one heck of a fundraiser.

 

I wonder if it's going to be the end of the absurd drive to be the first person to kill himself by traveling travel the speed of sound.

What the? I'm incredibly pissed about this.

By the way Ryan, I once did a report on a guy who did what i think is still the world's highest skydive. He was in free fall for over 5 minutes. It was not exactly an easy ride as i think his toes almost froze off.

In other words, go Fournier!
 
103 days ago
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100%InjuryRate wrote:
What the? I'm incredibly pissed about this.

By the way Ryan, I once did a report on a guy who did what i think is still the world's highest skydive. He was in free fall for over 5 minutes. It was not exactly an easy ride as i think his toes almost froze off.

In other words, go Fournier!
That original article talked about the current record holder: 

The highest previous recorded jump from a balloon was performed in 1960 by Joe Kittinger, a United States Air Force test pilot who leaped from 102,800 feet and exceeded 600 miles per hour before opening his parachute at 18,000 feet. He was down in less than 14 minutes.

The article goes on to say that his glove malfunctioned and his "right hand swelled to twice its normal size when his glove failed to pressurize properly."  Ouch!
 
 
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