RICHARD
08-13-2007, 05:01 PM
Man to break sound barrier
A parachutist hopes to become the first man to break the sound barrier by jumping from a balloon 25 miles high.
Michel Fournier, 63, a retired Army officer, will plunge at up to 1,000mph, breaking the record for the highest balloon jump into the bargain.
He will defy temperatures of -100C, solar radiation and oxygen deprivation, reports the Daily Mirror.
A modified space suit will protect him from the sonic boom.
He said: "It really is a leap into the unknown. Nobody knows much about the effect on the human body of passing the sound barrier."
Fournier, a former para who served in Algeria, was one of three candidates who took part in a French Army plan to jump 125,000 feet in the 80s.
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There is a little problem of getting the parachute to deploy at really fast will give him a super-sonic wedgie and a new vocal range!
A twist on the old joke...
How do you turn a man into a vegetable?
Let him try and break the cound barrier on a parachute....he'll come down-SQUASH! :eek:
A parachutist hopes to become the first man to break the sound barrier by jumping from a balloon 25 miles high.
Michel Fournier, 63, a retired Army officer, will plunge at up to 1,000mph, breaking the record for the highest balloon jump into the bargain.
He will defy temperatures of -100C, solar radiation and oxygen deprivation, reports the Daily Mirror.
A modified space suit will protect him from the sonic boom.
He said: "It really is a leap into the unknown. Nobody knows much about the effect on the human body of passing the sound barrier."
Fournier, a former para who served in Algeria, was one of three candidates who took part in a French Army plan to jump 125,000 feet in the 80s.
---------------------------------
There is a little problem of getting the parachute to deploy at really fast will give him a super-sonic wedgie and a new vocal range!
A twist on the old joke...
How do you turn a man into a vegetable?
Let him try and break the cound barrier on a parachute....he'll come down-SQUASH! :eek: