Red Bull Stratos

[Trip]

Pressure has everything to do with this. Go scuba diving. Feel what it feels like to have water just totally pushing against you. We have that same feeling of pressure on land as well and where you were jumping from... Where he was at, there was almost 0 pressure. He really just didn't feel much until he started spinning.

He probably really felt the initial acceleration off the balloon, but once he lost a reference, it was probably as close to the feeling of weightlessness as you can get.

[Homeslice]

Originally Posted by Trip

He probably really felt the initial acceleration off the balloon

That's what I'm talking about.

[Smittie61984]

Originally Posted by Homeslice

If Felix has said something about it, feel free to post it. I don't read every single news article.

All I know is that everything with mass has intertia. Including the organs inside your body. So if something grabs you and pulls you in one direction, your organs are initially going to try to remain where they are. You're telling me you wouldn't feel that?

You're right except that in free fall in a vacuum where you have absolutely no forces acting on your at all the molecules in your body are going to fall at the same rate as yoru space suit or as if you were made out of solid steel. Everything falls at the same rate in a vacuum. If for some magical reason your stomach fell at say 9.80 meters per second per second and the rest of your body fell at 9.81 meters per second per second then you'd feel your stomach because your stomach would exert a force against your nerves which are trying to travel at a different velocity.

When you jump out of an airplane you are immediately subject to the affects of air resistance and pressure, like it or not. So in a sense, inside your body your guts want to fall at 9.81m/ss but due to air resistance you are actually falling at 9.70m/ss. Because of that you have a net Force and no matter how small a force, something with mass will experience acceleration.

[Trip]

He's also under as close to constant acceleration as you can get. A lot of the stuff you talk about on earth is changing accelerations which your body can feel.

If you take off in a car and acceleration is kept constant, you are much less impacted by the change in velocity. Add in no real friction and pressure and you got weightlessness.

In space, if you jet yourself one way for just a moment, you will just keep accelerating with nothing to cause friction to slow you down, but you don't feel it at all.

Think about how a boat moves across the water at slow speeds, but you have water and air that will eventually slow it down.

[Smittie61984]

Kittinger talking about being suspended in space
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V2ncwumv9o

[Smittie61984]

Another one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ7N6V-YKJ8

[Homeslice]

Originally Posted by Smittie61984

You're right except that in free fall in a vacuum where you have absolutely no forces acting on your at all the molecules in your body are going to fall at the same rate as yoru space suit or as if you were made out of solid steel. Everything falls at the same rate in a vacuum. If for some magical reason your stomach fell at say 9.80 meters per second per second and the rest of your body fell at 9.81 meters per second per second then you'd feel your stomach because your stomach would exert a force against your nerves which are trying to travel at a different velocity.

When you say "everything falls at the same rate in a vacuum", yes that's true........ but you're talking about comparing a rock versus a piece of paper. Sure, they would both fall at the same rate in a vacuum. In fact, so would a human body. But, WITHIN that body, the organs are free to move indepedantly.

Think about Battlestar Gallactica. Those Viper ships? The pilots had to wear spacesuits, because there's no life support in those ships. So, they're in a vacuum. Now, what happens when they hit "Launch" and catapult out of the Gallactica? They get pushed back into their seat. Being in a vacuum makes no difference, they still get pushed back into the seat. And yes I realize it's just TV, but there is no reason why that wouldn't happen in real life.

So what I'm saying is, organs would get pushed around inside a body, the same way that a Viper pilot would get pushed back into his seat when he fires his engines.

[Smittie61984]

Did you just use Battlestar Galatica?

Again, if you launch a giant bottle rocket then from the cumbustion of the gasses, gas molecules push against the rocket, that pushes against you, that causes you to get glued back within your seat.

Also, every molecule in your body right now wants to travel to the center of the earth at 9.8m/ss. If you put a rocket on your stomach facing up then those same molecules are going to try and move to the earth at 9.8m/ss.

[Homeslice]

So where do we disagree? I don't get it.

[Smittie61984]

You're arguing that when jumping to Earth from space that during the free fall you should have the same sensation you would have when skydiving or riding a rollercoaster. That sinking feeling in your stomach, the sensation of falling, whatever you want to call it.

I'm arguing that you don't get that feeling and that you will feel you are suspended in space as Kittinger stated in the video until you enter into the thicker part of the atmosphere. Where you are in contact with a significant number of air molecules