Space Diving
Space is getting more popular. Most people think astronauts go to space just to experiment and study different planets. But a lot of modern space scientists think that space can be used differently. Rick Tumlinson and Jonathan Clark are trying to make a space suit. Their plan is to send a small rocket 60 miles up and have a heavily protected person / non-astronaut jump from it. The space suit would have to be very sturdy and have no leaks, because if it did have a leak you wouldn’t stand the pressure in space.
Right now Tumlinson and Clark are trying to develop equipment that could send some one back from space without a vehicle. Clark thinks that if he and Tumlinson can make a space diving suit, it will work as the first serviceable “life jacket of the spacefaring age”. The two have planned to demonstrate a 120,000 ft jump by 2009. Imagine that you might be able to dive 60 miles from space in two years!
Tumlinson says, “Our ultimate goal is to have individual human beings return from orbit alive.” That would be a dive from 150 miles or more, and there would be increased heat that would basically turn divers into human meteorites. Clark will gather data on how different suits, chutes and humans perform, from different dives.
The highest skydive in record is 102,800 ft, set by Joseph Kittinger. The record has been 102,800 for fifty years and it looks like Clark and Tumlinson are trying to break it. Actually all a person would need to dive from 120,000 ft would be an oxygen supply, drogue chute, a main chute, and a pressure suit. That would probably keep you alive through the fall.
Tumlinson has hired aquatic diver, Bill Stone, to create breathing systems for the suits, and Chris Gilman will design the pressure suit. But right now Clark and Tumlinson are faced with another problem: how are they going to get to 120,000 feet? They could use a balloon, but that would take hours to get to that altitude, plus rocket launches are more exciting. Entrepreneur, John Carmack is trying to make a small rocket. So far Carmack’s “rocket” can only fly up to 164 feet.
Tumlinson and Clark are even trying to pull off a 300,000 ft. dive. They are very optimistic Carmack, Stone, and Gilman still have a lot to finish in their assignments. Bill Sweetman, however, doesn’t think Clark and Tumlinson can complete a space dive by 2009. Sweetman says, “Carmack’s rocket has so far launched only to 164 feet, they’re going to do this in two years? Right! The record shows that you need to do this in a series of incremental attempts. But it all comes down to that magic formula of time and money. There’s nothing that sounds like they’re trying to alter the laws of physics, But there’s still a lot of engineering to be done.”
Sweetman seems reasonable; Carmack’s rocket has only launched 164 feet. But if Clark and Tumlinson can work quickly and well they might actually succeed making a real space dive from 120,000 ft. by 2009.