RedBull SpaceDive

If NASA faked the moon landings, does the agency have any credibility at all? Was the Space Shuttle program also a hoax? Is the International Space Station another one? Do not dismiss these hypotheses offhand. Check out our wider NASA research and make up your own mind about it all.
rick55
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Re: LIVE NOW - man leaps from edge of space

Unread post by rick55 »

fbenario wrote:
rick55 wrote:In essense, I wonder how we can get serious about all of this
That was uncalled for.

Please be assured that at least 6 of us, including the four admins, Brian, and I, are deadly serious about the forum. You can't help but have noticed the immediate evisceration of bad actors, once identified.

We take time every single day to keep the forum moving forward for a number of reasons, including so that it leaves a legitimate historical record to teach future generations. We all hope fewer dead civilian bodies are left strewn across the planet.
You quoted me out of context... I wrote....
quote
Magicians used to be all the rage. We enjoyed the illusions. Perhaps we ought to view today's media illusions as grand magic tricks. Simon's revelation of 9/11 as an illusion is, in a sense, a magic trick-- with awful consequences in politics but a magic trick nonetheless, with paid actors and CGI planes. <b>I'm struggling to come to terms with an attitude that does more than point to the illusions and joke about them as is often done here</b>-- and use our awareness to construct a viable epistemology of illusion along with a citizen's guide to seeing the trick-- and eventually tricking the tricksters into self-exposure. <b>In essense, I wonder how we can get serious about all of this... and force the transformation of media and others back into truth.</b> There should be a simple formula... a simple set of tactics... a certain set of questions. It should be like snapping our fingers and suddenly we're ALL awake.
unquote

I'll take my leave now since I get the feeling that my approach is not quite the angle you guys want here... which is fair since I'm an occasional visitor from the outside. First I was accused of plagerizing your forum here, then my posts were characterized as incomprehensible-- and now this-- being quoted out of context and being presented with a veiled threat of being banned. Amazing. Even Simon wondered if I'm from Earth for pointing out RedBull's risk factor is equally big in faking this event as it was in doing it since faking it would risk an exposee. You'all are okay-- and I like your work but I think I'll take my marbles and go home. By the way, the RedBull drink has too much sugar... and the sugar free is too carbonated. It's astonishing to me that they were able to earn the kind of money have and had the success they've had. The origin of the drink is a Thai plant and I think it would be useful to go back and look at that-- and stay away from RedBull. That 5 hr energy drink is pretty good though.

Thanks to everyone here... I'm outta here. No hard feelings. We just don't do things the same way.
cluedup
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Re: LIVE NOW - man leaps from edge of space

Unread post by cluedup »

Hi, I have some questions / thoughts which crossed my mind while reading this thread.

It is claimed that in 1960, Joseph Kittinger successfully completed a jump from a helium balloon from an altitude of 103,000 feet. If this claim is accepted then the leap to accepting Baumgartner's attempt is not that great.
Does anyone have any thoughts on the validity of the Kittinger jump?

I see in this thread that Baumgartner's achievement was immediately being refuted, followed by a round of serious anomaly hunting to fit the theory that the jump was faked. Would it not make more sense to look at all the evidence objectively and arrive at a conclusion at the end?

My final question in two parts is this. Is it possible that just one of all the major world events called out as fakes may in fact be true, and how can we differentiate between fact and fiction?
resolution
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Re: LIVE NOW - man leaps from edge of space

Unread post by resolution »

cluedup wrote: I see in this thread that Baumgartner's achievement was immediately being refuted, followed by a round of serious anomaly hunting to fit the theory that the jump was faked. Would it not make more sense to look at all the evidence objectively and arrive at a conclusion at the end?
*agreed*
rusty
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Re: LIVE NOW - man leaps from edge of space

Unread post by rusty »

I can't tell for sure if some or all aspects of this event have been faked or not, but from a purely technical point of view I can't see why this shouldn't be possible, at least in theory.

One objection to the feasibility of the whole thing is the density of helium, which is greater than the air density at 10km altitude. But such an argument only attests to poor understanding. There is no such thing as an "absolute" density of a gas. The density of gases depends on pressure and temperature. The given helium density of 0.1785 is only valid under standard conditions, that is 273.15K (0C) temperature and 1013.25 hPa pressure. As the atmospheric pressure decreases during the ascent, the volume of the balloon expands, thus lowering the density of the helium. Therefore the balloon has been filled only a little at ground level. Look at this picture:

Image

Once it reaches its destination altitude it will look fully inflated:

Image

Another objection was due to the high forces applied to Felix' body during the fall, comparing this to fighter jet pilots shredded after ejecting from their crafts. There is however a fundamental difference. A fighter pilot ejected at low altitude will hit the very dense air at supersonic speed, thus meeting a very strong, sudden force. Felix, on the other hand, will slow down gradually as the air gets thicker. Plus he's wearing a pressure suit.

Whether a company like RB wants to take the risk of a catastrophic failure or not depends mainly on the chances that it will actually fail. As stated, the jury is still out with me on how much of this is actually fake.

rusty
Heiwa
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Re: LIVE NOW - man leaps from edge of space

Unread post by Heiwa »

Balloon looks a little small to me. It should have diameter 510 meter ... at least at 39 000 m altitude. :D
BTW - what happened to the balloon after Felix had jumped? Did it fly away over Texas and dropped on Cuba?
Normally skydivers are jumping from max 4 000 meter and dropping 3 000 m to 1 000 m altitude when parachutes are deployed. As the atmospheric pressure at 4 000 m is say 600 hPa, it offers plenty resistance and the maximum velocity with resistance is about 100 m/s. With average drop speed 50 m/s a sky diver can then spend 60 seconds in free fall and do some fancy tricks and combinations. Why not? :rolleyes:
This crazy Felix jump from 39 000 m in almost vaccuum and following drop velocities of 400 m/s that cannot possibly be reduced by Felix stretching out flat with his overall suit in denser air enabling deploying a parachute seems pretty stupid and proves nothing except that Felix and his sponsors are crazy and stupid. I have a feeling Felix jumped from a much lower altitude and that footage was adjusted to suit.
lux
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Re: LIVE NOW - man leaps from edge of space

Unread post by lux »

cluedup wrote:
I see in this thread that Baumgartner's achievement was immediately being refuted, followed by a round of serious anomaly hunting to fit the theory that the jump was faked. Would it not make more sense to look at all the evidence objectively and arrive at a conclusion at the end?
On the face of it, as I stated here, it was logically unlikely that Felix's jump was anything but a faked publicity stunt.

When one is shown an implausible event it is logical to then look more closely for further signs of fakery.

Just as if a stage magician is shown allegedly sawing a lady in half, a lady who later jumps up unhurt and smiling, it is logical to then look for clues as to how the fakery was accomplished rather than to make the unlikely assumption that the magician has superhuman powers.

Especially, in the case of the Red Bull stunt, when the event was acknowledged and congratulated by a known fraudster agency, NASA.
lux
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Re: LIVE NOW - man leaps from edge of space

Unread post by lux »

cluedup wrote:
It is claimed that in 1960, Joseph Kittinger successfully completed a jump from a helium balloon from an altitude of 103,000 feet. If this claim is accepted then the leap to accepting Baumgartner's attempt is not that great.
Does anyone have any thoughts on the validity of the Kittinger jump?
We don't have as much raw evidence with regards to Kittinger's jump as we do for the Red Bull stunt but there is this edited documentary clip that purports to document his feat.



full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2JYklqLpEc

As you can see, at 4:44, he was photographed at close range as he supposedly fell after jumping from the balloon.

Image

Since he allegedly jumped alone and no aircraft can follow a skydiver as he free-falls I have to assume that this footage contains fakery which puts the whole stunt in question in my mind. Also, since Kittinger was involved in the Red Bull stunt as well, a highly questionable affair as noted above, I would think it is most likely that Kittinger's jump was faked as well.
rusty
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Re: LIVE NOW - man leaps from edge of space

Unread post by rusty »

Heiwa wrote:Balloon looks a little small to me. It should have diameter 510 meter ... at least at 39 000 m altitude. :D
They claim it's 102m in height and about 129m in diameter when fully inflated - and higher but thinner when at ground level. But in the first image I posted, it seems that the balloon is only about 35m in height or even less, judging from the size of the persons standing near. I could not get my hand on a "real" looking picture that displays the size of the balloon to be anywhere near what they claim it should be. Anyone?
Heiwa wrote:BTW - what happened to the balloon after Felix had jumped? Did it fly away over Texas and dropped on Cuba?
I don't know...I assume they could "open" it up in a controlled way, letting the helium escape slowly...so it will drop to the ground again not too far away. They'll probably want to re-use it ;)
rusty
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Re: LIVE NOW - man leaps from edge of space

Unread post by rusty »

Ahh...maybe that one:

Image

In the picture showing a balloon of ~35m height, the rest of the balloon is probably not yet inflated, lying on the ground, thin like a rope.
simonshack
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Re: LIVE NOW - man leaps from edge of space

Unread post by simonshack »

*

Thaumatography = "a dissertation on the wonders of nature".
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/thaumatography
The pursuit of flight/ A fear of falling
( a thaumatography by Jonathan Hagos) @ Oxford Brookes University

"Between 1959 and 1960, Kittinger, then of the United States Air-Force took part in three such projects.
Kittinger's first jump was made from about 76.000 feet, a malfunction in his parachute caused it to open after 2 seconds into his fall, it wrapped around his neck causing him to lose consciousness. He went into a spin of 120 revolutions per minute, where the G force at his extremities were calculated to be over 22 times the force of gravity. Fortunately Kittinger was jolted from unconsciousness by his automatic emergency parachute."
(...)
Image

"On his third and final jump, this time from 102,000 feet the pressurization for his right glove malfunctioned causing his hand to swell up to 4 times its normal size. :rolleyes:
He fell for four minutes and 36 seconds, reaching a maximum sped of 614 miles per hour, setting, amongst other records, the fastest speed by a human being through the atmosphere of the earth.
I especially liked the closing lines of Jonathan's thaumatography...
" I wanted to show you things I find worthy of wonder, without necessarily showing you the work I’ve done as a response to them. To show how we shouldn’t be afraid to appropriate, lie even - it's worth noting that a significant amount of what I've just spoken about was fabricated! - so, appropriate, lie, borrow and collage to form threads, a network, between your own polemic and the world around you.

That's it - Thank you."
We live in a funny world. :mellow:
Samiam-ish
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Re: LIVE NOW - man leaps from edge of space

Unread post by Samiam-ish »

lux wrote:
cluedup wrote:
It is claimed that in 1960, Joseph Kittinger successfully completed a jump from a helium balloon from an altitude of 103,000 feet. If this claim is accepted then the leap to accepting Baumgartner's attempt is not that great.
Does anyone have any thoughts on the validity of the Kittinger jump?
We don't have as much raw evidence with regards to Kittinger's jump as we do for the Red Bull stunt but there is this edited documentary clip that purports to document his feat.



full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2JYklqLpEc

As you can see, at 4:44, he was photographed at close range as he supposedly fell after jumping from the balloon.

Image

Since he allegedly jumped alone and no aircraft can follow a skydiver as he free-falls I have to assume that this footage contains fakery which puts the whole stunt in question in my mind. Also, since Kittinger was involved in the Red Bull stunt as well, a highly questionable affair as noted above, I would think it is most likely that Kittinger's jump was faked as well.
Can I suggest a fundamental difference between the techniques of documentary and those of live broadcast?

In conventional one camera film-making there is a pretty standard technique known as a 'cheat'. The simplest example is the 'noddy' used in news reports, where the reporter, after filming an interview, will record a short sequence of him/her pretending to listen, react and nod to the interview just completed. This allows the editor to cut the interview into a news package with the 'noddy' shots covering the edits in subject's interview.

Equally, in documentary filming, if a shot isn't available, impossible to get or simply missing, a film maker will often substitute a similar shot (maybe even from stock footage) in order to visually approximate what he or she is trying to convey. (I've used the 'cheat' myself in the occasional TV programme; it's kind of accepted practice to get you out of a hole and nobody complains; not the editor, not the producer, not even the commissioning editor).

So the original Kittinger footage of his 'skydive' could very well be a 'cheat' (eg a shot of him jumping from an aeroplane) in order to try and represent/illustrate the drama of his 'skydive' because the actual footage of him jumping from a balloon was 'impossible' to acquire (for whatever reason).

That's not to say that Kittinger's jump was real or fake, just that the techniques of documentary making are different from live broadcast and that 'cheats' are used for a different reason.

Make sense?
Haze
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Re: LIVE NOW - man leaps from edge of space

Unread post by Haze »

Image
lux
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Re: LIVE NOW - man leaps from edge of space

Unread post by lux »

Samiam-ish wrote:
Can I suggest a fundamental difference between the techniques of documentary and those of live broadcast?

In conventional one camera film-making there is a pretty standard technique known as a 'cheat'. The simplest example is the 'noddy' used in news reports, where the reporter, after filming an interview, will record a short sequence of him/her pretending to listen, react and nod to the interview just completed. This allows the editor to cut the interview into a news package with the 'noddy' shots covering the edits in subject's interview.

Equally, in documentary filming, if a shot isn't available, impossible to get or simply missing, a film maker will often substitute a similar shot (maybe even from stock footage) in order to visually approximate what he or she is trying to convey. (I've used the 'cheat' myself in the occasional TV programme; it's kind of accepted practice to get you out of a hole and nobody complains; not the editor, not the producer, not even the commissioning editor).

So the original Kittinger footage of his 'skydive' could very well be a 'cheat' (eg a shot of him jumping from an aeroplane) in order to try and represent/illustrate the drama of his 'skydive' because the actual footage of him jumping from a balloon was 'impossible' to acquire (for whatever reason).

That's not to say that Kittinger's jump was real or fake, just that the techniques of documentary making are different from live broadcast and that 'cheats' are used for a different reason.

Make sense?
Yes, it's called lying.

Responsible documentary film makers plainly label "dramatization" sequences as dramatizations. They do not intercut it with authentic footage without labeling it appropriately. Just because this practice has fallen out of use in recent years doesn't make omitting it any less dishonest.

Besides, how far did they go in the interests of "the techniques of documentary film making" as you call it? We don't know, do we? That makes the entire film as well as the event it represents suspect.
Samiam-ish
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Re: LIVE NOW - man leaps from edge of space

Unread post by Samiam-ish »

lux wrote:
Yes, it's called lying.

I don't disagree.
Samiam-ish wrote:
When I worked in TV I used to joke to myself that “TV was a lie”. The joke was about how the structure of the medium and the demands of the ‘programme’ mean that every shot on TV is in some way ‘constructed’. The act of shooting film or video (‘framing’) and the act of editing (‘manipulation’) is the process of creating a simulated reality in order to (hopefully) reflect an underlying reality.
viewtopic.php?f=32&t=838&p=2361279#p2361279

But I would argue that there is a quantitative and qualitative difference difference between 'faking' in the sense of constructing the representation of a 'truthful' narrative and 'faking' in a sense of constructing a 'falsified' reality. It's a question both of motivation and degree.

Should you do it in documentary? It's better if you don't obviously.

Should you do it in 'live' broadcasts? Never.

But a suspect archive clip from the 1960's is just that in my opinion: it is no hard evidence that Kittinger's jump did or did not take place. I suggest it is circumstantial at best and my own conclusions on it are inconclusive.

However a 'falsified' 'live' 'broadcast', well that's a whole other level of evidence. :lol:
lux
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Re: LIVE NOW - man leaps from edge of space

Unread post by lux »

Samiam-ish wrote:
But I would argue that there is a quantitative and qualitative difference difference between 'faking' in the sense of constructing the representation of a 'truthful' narrative and 'faking' in a sense of constructing a 'falsified' reality. It's a question both of motivation and degree.
I gather that by "truthful narrative" you mean, "this film shows what happened in concept but it is not what actually happened because we don't have footage of the real thing."

I contend that if that were the case it is the film makers responsibility to simply label that part of the footage honestly for what it is. It's extremely easy to do and the fact that it wasn't labeled truthfully taints such a film with the color of dishonesty. If there is nothing to hide then there is no reason not to be honest and if the film maker values his/her credibility he/she ought to do so.

It is reasonable to expect that a viewer will conclude that what he/she is being shown in a documentary context is what actually happened and to not accurately label portions of the film which are NOT what actually happened is irresponsible and careless at best.
But a suspect archive clip from the 1960's is just that in my opinion: it is no hard evidence that Kittinger's jump did or did not take place. I suggest it is circumstantial at best and my own conclusions on it are inconclusive.
It is a provably false record of an alleged event. When someone offers a provably false record of an alleged event it IS evidence that the event is being misrepresented. When this occurs in a courtroom it is called purgery, a criminal offense and one which obviously raises suspicion as to the event being reported.

But, of course, you are free to believe anything you wish.

By the way, why are you here?
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