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| The potentially record-breaking foot-crusher in question |
Why, even I have taken my share of life-threatening risks. I've bungee-jumped. I've used the Wellington Street on-ramp. I've braved the aisles of Orewa New World with nothing to protect me from the hordes of Zimmer-frames and mobility scooters except my own shopping basket.
In fact, just the other day, I dropped a full-sized brick on my foot. Admittedly, this last one wasn't fully intentional... definitely stupid though.
But as acts of stupidity go, jumping from 102,800 feet is up there. Way up there.
When "Fearless" Felix Baumgartner made history on Monday morning our time, a lot of people were watching. Over 7 million streamed the YouTube feed alone. The event sponsor, Red Bull, had their own swanky website and for some reason TV One took the entire ascent live. Until 6 o'clock rolled around obviously, then they had to make that crucial call between watching a bloke in a spacesuit in a balloon rising slowly... and Breakfast. They went with Breakfast. I know, weird right?
I watched pretty much the whole thing, from the launch, to the ascent, to the jump, to the landing.
The launch was interesting. Does letting go of something from a crane even qualify as a launch? I couldn't help wondering if they'd used a taller crane, it could have sped everything up a bit, because what came next was excruciating.
Nobody told me it would take so long to travel 24 miles up by balloon. I mean anyone who's ever lost their grip on one at a school gala knows once that puppy's gone, it's gone - and no amount of hysterical screaming from your daughter will bring it back. Buying her a new balloon will probably stop the screaming though. Failing that, maybe some candyfloss will shut her up. I may be getting off topic. Back to Felix.
Over 2 hours to get it up. The balloon capsule, I mean. Our lift at work rises faster than that. Admittedly it only goes up 3 and a half floors and breaks down once every 2 months, but still.
In spite of the long wait, I was pretty spellbound the whole time, even though literally nothing happened for ages. Felix sat there. The control room guys sat there. The balloon went up. Slowly. But still we watched. We watched in our millions.
Was it the extraordinarily high level of stupidity that held us so transfixed? Or were there other, darker forces at work here?
If we're being perfectly honest with ourselves, we were kind of hoping it would go wrong, weren't we? We were all well aware of the risks - Felix could tear his pressure suit exiting the capsule, causing his blood to boil as he fell to Earth faster than the speed of sound. As horrific as that sounds, how awesome would it have been to watch on live TV?
Unfortunately for us (but really fortunately for Felix) it turns out falling out of the sky isn't actually all that complicated. It's really just a matter of waiting for the balloon to rise, getting the door open, then jumping out without snagging the suit on the way past the doorway. Next time I'd wear a slightly more tear-resistant suit, but that's just me.
We did have a couple of nervous moments to whet our evil-sides' appetites. At one point there was talk of a malfunctioning face-heater - only one thing worse than boiling blood, and that's a frozen face. They seemed to fix this though, either that or Felix was worrying about something that didn't really matter. As it happens, Felix is not that fearless. He reportedly suffers from claustrophobia. This explains why he then went on to complain about the door not opening fast enough when he reached his target altitude. Once again, mission control assured him this was perfectly normal as they were still equalising the air pressure. Surely Felix had been through all this with them previously? But claustrophobia's grip is vicelike when you're trapped in a balloon capsule on the edge of space.
The ultimate moment of nervousness happened during freefall itself; Felix leaped and then came the DEATH Spin. (Cue dramatic sting - "dum, dum, dah") It was at this point the little devil on our collective shoulders started rubbing his hoofs together. Would the records still count even if he hit the ground without opening his chute? Come on, admit it, if you were watching you were wondering the same thing.
Happily, or sadly (depending on whether you were listening to the devil or the angel) Felix converted the DEATH Spin into just a Spin and lived to tell the tale. Many records were broken. Felix was not. Did it matter we'd never even heard of these records? Of course not. A record is a record and we love watching people do stupid things.
I wonder what the record is for heaviest brick dropped on a foot? More to the point, could I get Red Bull to sponsor it?
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| Okay, so it's not that high... But I still wouldn't want to jump from it |
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