The Red Bull Stratos page has a lot of cool interactive stuff showing the jump details:
http://www.redbullstratos.com/
And Wired has some fun nerd math on the speed of sound aspect:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/stratos-space-jump-can-you-fall-faster-than-the-speed-of-sound/
I always thought speed of sound went up with altitude, I've carried that misconception for decades.
RossD wrote: The Mach number changes with altitude.
And with the number of blades.
Well, depends on how you look at it. (Speed of sound at high altitude.)
The speed of sound is greater in higher density media. So at higher altitude, where the air is less dense, the speed of sound is lower. Think about how you can hear trains through the steel tracks well before through the air, then go one step further.
But, if you consider the "speed of sound" as most people know it (in air, at sea level, which is somewhere around 340m/s), it's easier to make something travel that speed at higher altitude because there is less air resistance to impede the objects motion.
Do you hear it when you break the sound barrier, or later?
don't mean to sound like a sick-o but....
i hope I'm not the only one that's hoping this guy will just break into a bunch of pieces as he's descending from space.
wouldn't it just suck to hear the 'boom' of the sound barrier, and then see I dunno, his left arm come falling from the sky. or even worse.. just the empty parachute.oh, wouldn't that just freak people out.
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