A space diver’s suit “would have to be a very, very rugged spacesuit,” says Erik Seedhouse, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida.įor starters, it would likely require its own propulsion capability, Seedhouse says, in order to properly orient the diver so they don’t begin to tumble out of control-something that could cause them to pass out or that could tear off an arm or leg. The pressurized spacesuits astronauts wear act as personal spaceships, with everything the astronaut needs to survive in the event of an emergency.
Reaching greater heights requires rocket-powered flight-a challenging feat because the diver’s bailout would need to be timed for when the spacecraft reaches its apogee, the point in its orbit when it is farthest from Earth. But balloons can only go so high (roughly 135,000 feet) before the air becomes too thin for them to maintain their altitude. In the past, these high-altitude skydivers have used specialized hot air balloons to lift them into the stratosphere, the second layer of Earth’s atmosphere. So what would it actually take to skydive from space?įirst, you have to get there. So far, neither Eustace, Baumgartner, nor anyone else who has careened down from the heavens has made it anywhere near the boundary, which lies roughly 62 miles above Earth’s surface, or 327,360 feet. Joe Kittinger’s famous free-fall from 102,800 feet above Earth’s surface in 1960, adrenaline junkies have sought higher and higher altitudes from which to jump, inching ever closer to the Kármán line, or the boundary between our atmosphere and space. Let’s nerd out over it together-join Pop Mech Pro. During the four minute and 27 second plummet, the tech mogul reached speeds of over 800 miles per hour and shattered Red Bull stuntman Felix Baumgartner’s previous skydiving record, established just two years earlier. In 2014, Alan Eustace, then the senior vice president of knowledge at Google, dropped from a hot-air balloon floating 135,899 feet above Earth’s surface.
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