Fall speed of sound free#

The suit was designed to provide protection from temperatures ranging from 100 F to -90F, but also to maintain pressure and keep the liquids within his body tissue from turning to gas and expanding. Pressurization: Baumgartner used a special suit to control the pressure within his body as he experienced changes in atmospheric pressure. For the two hours before his balloon lifted off the ground, Baumgartner breathed nothing but pure oxygen, which essentially 'got rid of all the nitrogen from his body, because you can essentially get the bends when you ascend to the heights he was at.' 'If you go to altitude and there are any kind of gases in your system, they could expand and that would feel extremely uncomfortable,' Wells explained.īreathing: Similar to his dietary restrictions, Baumgartner had to closely control what he breathed in the hours leading up to his jump. By the time he reached jump altitude, his body was effectively empty of food. He eliminated any fibre content from the foods he ate, consuming only foods that were easily digestible by his body. Here are some key of the key physiological challenges Baumgartner, a 43-year-old Austrian, managed to overcome ahead of his supersonic skydive, as broken down by Wells:ĭiet: Baumgartner maintained a tightly controlled diet during the lead up to his jump, Wells said. “When you see him step out of the balloon and plummet to Earth there's nothing holding him back, he's accelerating up to 1,300 km/h.' 'He's jumping from the edge of space, it's an environment that's -68 F, there's literally almost no air molecules,” Wells told Canada AM on Monday.

Fall speed of sound free#

The extreme athlete successfully executed his death-defying free fall from 38.6 kilometres, landing safely in New Mexico after reaching a maximum speed of 1,324 kilometres an hour, or Mach 1.24, which is faster than the speed of sound. Greg Wells, CTV's sports analyst and human physiologist, Baumgartner's meticulous training and preparation paid off. In Pictures: Felix Baumgartner's Giant Leapīut in the end, said Dr.Even breaking the sound barrier could have had disastrous, unknown effects on Baumgartner's body. His pressurized suit could have failed, his blood could have boiled, his chute could have failed to deploy.

The slightest breeze could have interrupted the daredevil's solo ascent to roughly 39 kilometres above the Earth in a gossamer-like balloon.

Felix Baumgartner could have died in one of many ways during his record-breaking skydive from the edge of space on Sunday.