Sometimes, our greatest achievements are dwarfed by someone with balls of depleted uranium jumping out of a balloon into the stratosphere.
[Image Credit: S. Marekovich]
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Here's something I've been wondering about… Blackbird pilots had a little drogue chute that deployed soon after ejection. This was supposed to keep you from tumbling at high altitudes, because with little air resistance you could turn yourself into a little centrifuge pretty quickly. How did this guy combat that phenomenon?
(Okay, I haven't actually watched the jump, so it hasn't been nagging at me that badly.)
He spun pretty viciously for actually quite a long time. When he finally stabilized, he sounded pretty beaten up. But eventually, yes, I believe a mini parachute did stop the spinning.
I still don't understand why he started upright, then tried to turn to head down during the jump. With the thin atmosphere, normal skydiving maneuvers weren't going to work. Why not start by hanging from his feet and then releasing? That way you start off already in the correct orientation.
Well he in fact did tumble but did his best not to hit anything on the way out the door so that he did not start out tumbling head over heels. He did use a small chute to help straighten himself out.