Supersonic Parachuting: Red Bull Stratos vs Le Grand Saut

Two teams are currently competing in an unofficial race for the first human parachute jump to reach supersonic speeds in the descent.

The current record height for a high altitude jump is 31.09 km (102,800ft), achieved on August 16, 1960 by Joe Kittinger, a retired United States Air Force Colonel. During his drop he reached a top speed of 988km/h (614mph), just below the speed of sound. But it looks like we are soon going to see the first parachute jump that breaks the sound barrier 1083km/hr (690mph).

Red Bull Stratos

In the Red Bull Stratos effort Felix Baumgartner (pictured left) plans to jump from a balloon at 36.58km (120,000ft). The team boasts a very nice website and an all-star project team. Oh, and don't forget the sponsorship of Red Bull, a brand well-known for associating itself with high-profile sports, extreme sports and record-breaking efforts. Another well-known brand, Nokia, is also providing a special application for its handsets that will enable the public to watch the event in real-time, even showing Baumgartner's pulse rate!

Le Grand Saut

In parrallel, another effort by a team consisting of French and Canadian members is preparing for Le Grand Saut (The Big Jump). In this effort, Michel Fournier (pictured right), a former colonel and paratroops instructor in the French army reserve will attempt to jump from a balloon at 40km (~130,000 feet). Le Grand Saut doesn't appear to have any major sponsors but it also has some quite impressive members from the medical sciences.

Le Grand Saut is planned for May this year whereas Red Bull Stratos has not announced the date of its attempt.

Parachute jumping from extreme altitudes is not just a publicity stunt. It also has important benefits for many other fields including medicine, science and technology. These types of extreme altitude parachute jumps can also simulate the ejections of astronauts from a high altitude rockets, quite important in this age of human sub-orbital spaceflight.

Scroll down this post to see a promotional video of the Red Bull Stratos effort as well as a nice picture and two CNN news pieces about a previous attempts at Le Grand Saut.

Project Enterprize - Privately Funded European Space Tourism

Project Enterprise is a German/Swiss/Austrian collaboration started in 2004 as Europe's first privately funded spaceflight project with the goal of carrying out sub orbital flights for space tourism and scientific experiments.
Website: http://www.european-spacetourism.eu/i... (in German only)
Google translation

ESA's View on Private Suborbital Spaceflights

In our blog post Government Support for Future Lunar Missions published in July, White Label Space agreed on the necessity of governments to show interest in privately funded space projects like lunar landers.

Now, the European Space Agency has communicated it's view on space tourism, a similar topic, underlining the difficult balance of contributing to activities with available experience on the one hand, while not interfering in competitive markets on the other hand. Below, a quotation of ESA's position on space tourism.

"ESA is taking a position of cautious interest and informed support, with the following guidelines:

1. ESA should monitor the relevant technology activities and assess whether spin-ins and spin-offs could be envisaged for/from European space programmes.
2. While avoiding interfering in the development of a fully competitive market, ESA should further reflect on possible partnership with European ventures or support actions, based on mutual interest and demonstrated technical and commercial maturity, without nevertheless exposing ESA to any liabilities related to business exploitation. To this end, legal schemes should be defined to allow for such activities, as allowed within the principles laid out in the ESA Convention.
3. Provision of services by ESA in the domain of human spaceflight, in particular ‘astronaut training’, i.e. provision of expertise for developing dedicated training programmes and/or facilities for specific tourist flight opportunities, and ‘space medicine’, i.e. provision of expertise to develop dedicated medical preparation programmes of space tourists, should also be explored for mutual benefit, making available ESA’s competences under conditions to be defined.
4. ESA should contribute in the development of a regulatory frame for space tourism in Europe, involving both civil aviation regulatory authorities and competent bodies from the EC, aiming also at a ‘more level playing field’ for all parties around the world, and supporting the interests of European industry.
5. ESA should facilitate the free flow of ideas among all interested European parties, e.g. by establishing a platform for voluntary information exchange."

The full article Space Tourism as well as the complete ESA Bulletin (No. 13, August 2008) in which the article appeared can be downloaded for free from ESA's website.