Baumgarten's Capsule

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Rickles

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#110880 17-Oct-2012 19:56

Here's a question ... what happens to the capsule and helium balloon?

Presumably it won't float into space proper, nor have enough distance within the atmosphere to burn up?

R.

sbiddle

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#702663 17-Oct-2012 20:07

Both the balloon and capsule fall back to earth for reuse. The actual mission was delayed due to damage to the capsule from one of the earlier jumps.

jpoc

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#703204 18-Oct-2012 20:55

I heard that the capsule crashed back to earth on top of the Oracle catamaran as it was out on trials.

Awesome.

gzt

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#703209 18-Oct-2012 21:07

I heard they were using Baumgarten's capsule as a skyhook for extra speed.

Nothing in the rules against that - is there?

jpoc

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#703216 18-Oct-2012 21:18

To be more serious, when Baumgartner jumped, the balloon and capsule will have started to gain altitude.

A little later, the capsule detached itself from the balloon and thus, started to fall. Subsequently, the capsule deployed a chute of its own and then started a slower descent. The capsule will then have descended and landed somewhere. Since we did not see media tales along the lines of "Baumgartner capsule in school bus destruction horror" I think that it is fair to assume that the capsule landed without any newsworthy incident.

The balloon will then have ascended further. Normally, such balloons have a limiting altitude at which the balloon material can no longer withstand the pressure difference between the helium inside the balloon and the ever thinning atmosphere. At that point, the balloon bursts and you then have a debris field of ultra thin balloon skin falling slowly to earth.

By the time that the pieces of balloon reach the ground they will be indistinguishable from the routine crop of witches knickers.

CYaBro

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#703250 18-Oct-2012 22:23

They did briefly show the capsule coming back down to earth and they said that there was valuable data recorded by sensors etc in the capsule.

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