At this moment, a 400 foot streak of silver is floating across a perfect, calm, Saskatchewan spring morning sky.
And, at this moment, the capsule it was attached to remains on the ground.
It’s uncertain what happened – human error or malfunction – but the balloon separated from its payload at liftoff. Local residents are reporting that the balloon is beginning to descend about 8 miles northwest of the Battlefords.
Update – The launch manager Dale Sommerfelt (via radio interview) reports the balloon has been located 15km west of the Battlefords. No decision has been made about a future attempt – the balloons are designed for single use, and they don’t have a backup. A briefing will be held later today.
(Yesterday’s post continues below)
CP;
After a delay earlier in the morning over concerns about winds, a French skydiver has decided to proceed with his bid to try to make history by jumping from the stratosphere above Saskatchewan.
Michel Fournier is scheduled take to the sky Monday morning in a capsule attached to a massive helium balloon and then step out and free fall 40,000 metres to the Earth.
Fournier’s launch manager, Dale Sommerfeldt, said Monday morning the wind is light at the launch site in North Battleford, Sask.
Sommerfeldt said the staff was about to start filling the helium balloon for Fournier’s launch.
The latest by radio is that the wind has risen a little, but that the jump is still a go.
Fournier’s website is here, but under heavy traffic load this morning, so may be slow to access.
Update: latest report is that they have not yet started filling the balloon, so any launch will be after 8am local time, given the 90 minutes that takes. But so far, winds are within allowable limits.
Update: Wind from the SE at 9. They’re doing final checks, and hoping for a 9 am launch time.
I have appointments this morning, and can’t stay on this, so readers are invited to do so in the comments. Hopefully, all goes well!
Update: Postponed on a day-to-day basis, due to wind changes this morning.
Well, it’s probably a good thing the event didn’t come about. He’d most likely would be joining that pastor that recently tried the lawn-chair balloon stunt. Did they ever find that guy?
I just heard that balloon is worth $250,000 ???!!!
If that is true then how can anyone be so careless with a quarter million dollar balloon as to let it escape?
I think he chickened-out. Yesterday it was canceled due to winds and then today’s incident. Sorry, but for all the preparation that goes into such a thing——the money, the time, the planning——I’d rather doubt that it wasn’t intentional … a way for him to save face. At 40kms up, he would fall at the a speed of 1,500km/h at a certain point. As a result, he would break up like the Shuttle Columbia.
Gee Dawn, you must be an aeronautical engineer or something. Look up terminal velocity sometime.
Well Dawn is not too far off,
In 1960 Joseph Kittinger of the US military dropped from over 31,000 meters and,
“…During his descent, he reached speeds up to 614 miles per hour, approaching the speed of sound without the protection of an aircraft or space vehicle.
That is almost 1000 Kilometers per hour…
Wow, epic fail.
Dawn, I can’t see him just letting a quarter million dollar balloon drift away due to nerves.
Hopefully the balloon isn’t badly damaged and he can try again.
Well, I think Dawn is too far off. Kittinger didn’t “break up like the Shuttle Columbia”.
Kittinger jumped from 31,000 feet. Today’s planned jump was to be 120,000 feet. And that can’t even be viewed just as 4 times higher because there’s an exponential increase in danger with every 10,000 feet—as is the case with wind damage. The difference between 50 and 55 mph winds is not that significant. But in a hurricane, for example, the difference in damage between 180 and 185 mph is catastrophically different. Same principle aplies.
Most records are probably broken with a 10% difference … probably even less. It’s not like he was going to jump from 34,000 feet. What he was attempting to do no human could survive.
Simply put. He came to his senses
I understand that at that speed it’s easy to get burned.
Dawn, I think you’ve gotten some metric and imperial units mixed up. Kittinger jumped from 102800 feet = 31333 meters.
HAHAHA x 100
*breathes*
HAHAHA x 80
*breathes*
HAHAHA x 60
*breathes*
continue x series to 0
*resumes normalcy*
Mike in Ontario, that’s pretty much what I was thinking too. If things go horribly wrong and he’s rushed down to the university hospital in Saskatoon where he’ll stay for 18 months, who foots the bill? I sure hope France has good health care insurance and they agree to cover it. I can’t imagine a private insurance company agreeing to cover it.
OMMAG: … the chances of landing in the bush are pretty good in that area.
======================
Not to mention a river that’s still mighty cold, I would think.
I hope this guy has better luck than Nicholas Piantanida, a New Jersey truck driver who tried this stunt in 1966 in Minnesota. He arrived on the ground alive, but died after about four months in a coma. Hennepin County General Hospital in Minneapolis was at that time experimenting with a hyperbaric chamber as a way to treat oxygen deprivation injuries. It did him no good.
‘The circumstances of Piantanida’s third and fatal attempt remain baffling. He was still on his way up at 57,600 feet when ground control staff heard a scream and then a monstrous gush of air come through their monitors. Piantanida had lost pressure at 11 miles high. One theory is that he may not have prebreathed sufficiently before taking off, later causing him to struggle for breath, panic, and open his visor. If so, “it was basically suicide,” speculates his daughter, Diane Shearin, “like crossing a desert with one canteen.”‘
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.08/space_pr.html
I wish this guy better luck than Nick Piantanida, a New Jersey truck driver who died trying this stunt in Minnesota in 1966.
He lived about 4 months after his fall. At that Hennepin County Hospital in Minneapolis was experimenting with a hyperbaric chamber for attempted healing of oxygen-deprivation injuries. It did him no good.
‘The circumstances of Piantanida’s third and fatal attempt remain baffling. He was still on his way up at 57,600 feet when ground control staff heard a scream and then a monstrous gush of air come through their monitors. Piantanida had lost pressure at 11 miles high. One theory is that he may not have prebreathed sufficiently before taking off, later causing him to struggle for breath, panic, and open his visor. If so, “it was basically suicide,” speculates his daughter, Diane Shearin, “like crossing a desert with one canteen.”‘
Well, at least it wasn’t an entire carnival falling from the sky…