Space Dive Page #3

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The capsule's engineering

is more complicated

than anyone could have predicted.

The project

is falling behind schedule

and Red Bull's budget has trebled

to nearly 10 million.

Engineering's a process of discovery

and we discover things take

longer, or are more complex...

It sends over a project manager from

Austria to whip the team into shape.

We're still processing

information...

We discovered that we need

another electrical engineer

and a technician,

which we don't have right now.

'It's just two different worlds

colliding.'

How can a marketing person

help somebody managing

an engineering project?

We can't necessarily hire

somebody to do the job

if we don't have information.

It's their money.

Red Bull can move in and take over,

but they can't speed it up.

Red Bull insists

there can be no more delays.

I hate standing up early.

LAUGHTER:

Which is not early for most people,

but eight o'clock to me

is like the middle of the night.

Felix's training in the pressure

suit begins at a facility

used by the military to simulate

conditions on the edge of space.

Overseeing the test

is Joe's colleague, Mike Todd.

'It's really a training exercise

for Felix.'

He has a limited suit experience

and the more experience

we can get him in the suit,

the more confident

he's going to be at altitude.

Sir, whenever you're ready,

go ahead and reach up to the top

and bring your visor down slowly.

The suit's flexibility

is still causing Felix concern.

Now he'll find out what it's like

working in it for several hours.

'I've seen people struggle

with pressure suits.'

'You're in your own

little environment,

'it's a little plastic bubble,

'and you've always got something

touching your skin some place

'which reminds you that you are.'

He's coming up.

Felix is depressurised

to 76,000 feet -

way beyond the Armstrong Line.

It's getting hot in here, Tom.

It's getting hot in here.

The water bubbling

is what would happen to his blood

without protection.

The higher you go,

the more the suit inflates,

so it's getting harder to move.

Plus your neck ring

is lifting your head.

INTERCOM:
Everything looks good.

How are you doing?

It really hurts my stomach.

Got stomach pain now.

'It's getting hot and cold

inside your body.'

You can feel how you start sweating.

Your respiration rate

has definitely changed.

'You feel claustrophobic, you know?

'I was really close to telling the

guys, "Hey, get me out of this suit.

'"I can't deal with that any more."

'I was really fighting against it,

you know?

'Fighting against my own fear,

fighting against my own mind.'

'Everybody's counting on you.'

Everyone thinks you're a really

cool guy, you can deal with it,

and, I mean, I have to accomplish

a jump from 130,000ft,

breaking the speed of sound,

and I can't even stand

being in the suit on the ground.

Do we have experience from

other pilots? What do they say?

Sure. They do feel

more and more confident,

the more and more they do it,

but ah, it's a learning curve.

And you're getting it.

Felix's anxiety about the suit

brings back uncomfortable memories

for Mike Todd.

40 years ago, he worked

with another civilian

attempting to jump

from extreme altitude.

Nick Piantanida

was a 33-year-old skydiver

who had dreams

of beating Joe's record.

Nick was going at 125,000 feet.

David Clark supplied him

with a pressure suit

and we supplied him

with a parachute.

Didn't quite have the backing

that we have on this project,

nor did he have the experience.

Like Felix, Nick had never

worked in a pressure suit.

Despite intense training,

he never felt comfortable in it.

On 1st May, 1966,

he took off in his balloon.

'Testing, 1, 2, 3.

'1, 2, 3.'

A recording of his communication

with mission control has survived.

Two hours into his ascent,

something went terribly wrong.

'Visor...'

'What was that, Nick?'

'Emergen...'

Emergency, cut him off.

He was probably up around

50,000 feet and some way or another,

the visor was either opened

accidentally or intentionally,

we really don't know.

The people on the ground

immediately cut the balloon away

from the gondola.

By the time they got to him,

they found him

outside of the gondola

with the visor partially open.

Nick was in a coma

caused by hypoxia -

a lack of oxygen to the brain.

He died four months later.

'Am...I the next one who fails?'

'I'm 40 years old,

and I want to get older, you know?'

Good.

All right, let's go.

The scientists want to analyse

the aerodynamics of Felix in flight.

It's the kind of low-altitude jump

that Felix is used to...

..but wearing the suit,

even unpressurised,

makes it a challenge.

It's like watching a hawk in flight.

I deal with aircraft,

and we make machines

that do certain flight dynamics.

In this case, the machine is Felix.

At this altitude, Felix falls

at around 100 miles an hour.

Jumping from 24 miles up,

he'll be in a near-vacuum.

The lack of resistance means

he'll just keep accelerating.

Faster than a jumbo jet

after 25 seconds.

Moments later,

faster than a .45 calibre bullet.

And after 35 seconds,

he'll exceed 700 miles an hour.

As he passes through

the sound barrier,

the team want Felix to be

in the delta position,

tracking head down.

They think this is will be the

safest position to go supersonic.

But it's a theory

that has never been tested.

We're putting Felix into a condition

that really has never been done

and has never been documented

for sure,

so we don't know what happens

to the body at the speed of sound.

What they do know is when an object

like a plane goes supersonic,

it is catching up with and pushing

through its own sound waves.

In early jets,

this caused extreme vibration.

No-one knows

what it will do to Felix.

As he pushes closer

to the sound barrier,

he may potentially have parts

of his body that are supersonic

while other parts

of his body are not.

You end up with a vibration

that could cause physical problems,

because your body is very

susceptible to vibration

and wave patterns,

so if you get the wrong pattern,

you can cause internal damage

to organs.

We've created computer models

trying to see what we think

is going to happen,

but after doing

all the math,

it's still a guess.

The test jumps help Felix

feel safer in the suit.

But back on the ground,

the more research the team does,

the more risks

they have to deal with.

Yeah.

So what's your preference right now?

Is it feet first or head first?

He wants to go head first.

Just to slide up to the door...

The latest is a high-altitude

phenomenon called flat spin,

something Joe experienced

on one of his early jumps.

'When I was freefalling,

all of a sudden'

I had this violent, uh...

rotation.

And it was so violent,

I could not pull my arms in,

I couldn't do anything,

I was just...paralysed.

Joe's camera captured

the violence of his spin.

Matter of fact, I spun at 120 rpm.

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