We’ve been learning all about Earth recently. We’ve talked a lot about the different layers of Earth. We’ve talked all about what it’s made of. We’ve talked about the causes of earthquakes and volcanoes. As we wrap that up, we’ll be starting to take a journey through the Earth’s atmosphere and out into the solar system. Before we do that though, somebody else has already started that ascent. Today a man named Felix Baumgartner is venturing into the stratosphere to attempt a 23 mile freefall back to the Earth.
In a specialized suit, Felix will have a 3 hour ascent to 120,000 feet above the Earth. He’ll then take a bunny hop forward from his pressurized space capsule as gravity takes over and he begins his fall back toward the Earth.
During his fall, Baumgartner will not only be out for a joyride, he’ll also be collecting scientific data that will help create future suits for astronauts that could help them better survive in space. He’ll top out at about 690 miles per hour and will actually be traveling faster than the speed of sound. No person has ever broken the sound barrier before so scientists are very excited to find out how it affects the human body. His trip will take about 10 minutes and he won’t pull his parachute until he gets to about 5,000 miles above New Mexico.
If you’re interested in watching his record breaking fall, beating the previous mark of a 19.5 mile freefall, you can click on the video below. As this has never been done before, there are always risks in something tragic happening. However, there is a delay on the video so in case something does happen, it will cut away before anything can be seen.
If the jump is delayed or if it has already occurred, you can watch the animated video below to get an idea of just exactly what the jump is like.
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Dear Mr. Avery,
This was SO COOL! I wish I could do that….sort of. If I did do this I would be terrified
and I would probably be crying the whole way down.
From,
Rebecca A.
Dear Mr. Avery,
When I went to Discovery Cove I fed Stingrays and when a baby stingray came up to me it started sucking on my thumb so then I fed it a shrimp and it followed me around in the water for the rest of the day! I don’t think anyone has had a baby stingray following them around ever!!:)
From,
Amanda K.
Love the story and love the site!
Dear Mr. Avery,
I miss you so much and coincidentally, I just watched this recently. It was amazing how fast he went. I watched it in my social studies class (my teacher Mr. Steel loves that kind of stuff).
Can you tell Miss. Girard for me that I miss her. She is the best ELA/Social Studies teacher in the world and Mr. Avery thank you for being the best teacher in the world for both 4th and 6th grade. You were always there for me and you are the best math/science teacher ever. Thank you!
From your awesome (wordy wise word) 7th grade student,
Kelsea R.
P.S. <3 peace out
Hi I’m Joshua and Sky we thought the man was scary and cool we didn’t think he would live I thought a asteroid was going to hit him.
Qustion 1.who was the man that jumped? Qustion 2. we thought it was done to be scary for us?
Hello Mr Avery and your class.
I like your video on Felix jumping down from the edge of Earth’s atmosphere. It was amazing how he broke lots of records and the speed of sound.
The big balloon thing looked awesome, it kind of looked like there was nothing there?
From Jasper and Paige
Hi Mr Avery
We like the video clip when you jumped I watched it on sunrise but Izaiah didn’t. I thoght that was very brave. We would never never never be able to be that brave.
I wonder what its like jumping from the edge of space. What do you think it would be like?
good bye
Dear Mr Avery
We like your blog,and how it tells you with just the piceres that it is going to be good blog.I think I would scare my self if i jumped of the edge of space,I would never never never do it.Would you jump of the edge of space?
From India
Dear Mr Avery
Your blog is amazing and cool.
I like your video, it was cool.
from Teliah and Liam
Hi our names are Rueve and caitlin.
We thought it was cool and brave to jump from the earth in space. Even we wouldn’t do that.
How did he do it? Was it scary? How did you video it?
Goodbye Mr Avery
Hi
Your blogs nice. We like it.
We watched the video of the man who jumped off the edge of the earth. It was cool!
How many people in your class?
from Megan and Caleb
Dear Megan and Caleb,
Thanks for the compliment on our blog. Mr. Avery likes to keep it nice. We have 18 kids in our class this year. I agree that Felix’s jump was awesome. We were watching in class but it got delayed because of the wind. I missed the jump but we watched it in class the next day.
From,
Aiden C.
Dear Mr Avery
We really like your blog.It would be really scary to jump of the edge of space.I like how you set it up the look like peaple will want to read it and look at it.It is very inporesing what you did.whould you ever jump of the edge of space?.
Dear Mr Avery
We enjoyed watching the RedBull super
sonic free fall animated HD video. We loved your video clip.
We liked how the man broke heaps of records.
We also liked how he broke the speed of sound.
How did you make such an awesome video?
From Ethan and Kara
Dear Mr.Avery,
I realy liked the post that you put up the red bull super sonic free fall animated HD vidio. It would be sooooooooooo freaky that you would have to fall all the way from space into earth theres one thing I know and it is that I would never ever do that would you?
From Tahlia and Ebbz
Dear Mr. Avery,
Your posts and blog is wonderful! My third grade students were just introduced to this type of technology component last week and they are so motivated to continue it. We have been searching the internet for other third grade classrooms to communicate with and we came across your blog. My students are very excited to have the opportunity to collaborate with students in our country and all over the world. Thanks for creating such a useful, motivating blog. You and your students can follow my class at http://missbacksloop.wordpress.com or visit our class website at http://missbacksclass.weebly.com We look forward to hearing from you and your students.
Your fellow teacher,
Miss Backs
Dear Mr.Avery,
I would never risk my life to jump out of a plane. I would be very scared. The suit is very cool. I am very surprised he landed on his feet.
From,
Kaylee
Dear Mr.Avery,
When I was watching Felix jump yesterday I think I was more nervous than he was! I was watching him get ready to jump and as soon as he opened the door I started jumping up and down and I couldn’t hold in my excitement and I was thinking how sad it would be if he died doing the jump.I was very impressed how he just jumped! I would of been holding on to the bar for as long as possible. When he finally reached the ground I was so happy and so was everyone in the control room. My favorite part of the jump was the end, when he reached the ground he got down on his knees and put his hands in the air and all the reporters came over to take his picture. That was an exciting day for me but even more exciting for Felix.
From your space buddy,
Jackie D.
Dear Jackie,
Me too! I think it is amazing that he survived.He must of had a lot of training for the jump.
From,
Kaylee
Dear Mr. Avery,
I would never risk my life to jump out of a plane. I don;t think would ever do that! I have most likely never done anything that other people have never done before.
Sincerely,
Jenna
Hello Mr. Avery’s class,
What an experience it would be to be so high you can see the curve of the Earth’s surface and a huge amount of our world at one time. He has now made the successful jump and I have read he fell at a peak speed of 729mph (1166kph) in his descent but they need to check to see if he broke the sound barrier in his fall.
Did you know the speed of sound is different depending on temperature and in what it travels? In normal air around ground level, I don’t think he reached the speed of sound but up so high he might have.
I see also you were looking at the layers of the earth and volcanoes. Had I known I could have earlier shared some posts I made on the subject. Here are the links…
http://rossmannellcomments.edublogs.org/2012/08/16/natural-disasters-for-4km-and-4kj-volcanoes-earthquakes-and-tsunamis/
http://rossmannellcomments.edublogs.org/2012/10/14/more-on-volcanoes-for-global-grade-3/
http://rossmannellcomments.edublogs.org/2012/05/23/samples-scree-obsidian-samples/
http://rossmannellcomments.edublogs.org/2012/05/23/a-final-volcano-post-of-you-tube-links/
@RossMannell
Teacher (retired), N.S.W., Australia
Dear Ross Mannell,
Thank you for commenting on our blog! It is amazing that he did that big of a jump. I heard he landed on his feet.
From
Kaylee
Dear Mr Avery and class,
Wow, what an amazing post!
Would you ever be willing to jump 23 miles back down to the Earth?-
No, I would never ever be willing to fall that far down. If you were falling that far down and you didn’t have a space suit on your mouth would be all over the place.
Have you ever done something that you don’t think anybody else has ever done before?
No, I don’t think I have but I would love to. Maybe if you did something amazing you could get in the Guiness World Record Book
Well bye for now,
Kealee
Dear Kealee,
Me too! I would be freaking out. I am surprised that he even did that. I think if someone did not have a suit on they would dye.I think it is cool that he did that.
From,
Kaylee
Dear Mr Avery and class,
Wow what a great post.
I don’t know if I would jump from the air 23 miles. But I think it would be fun. I would do flips in the air it would be just like in the pool. Although it would be very freaky. It would be cool, I would be on t.v, but if I did it, I would go a bit higher and set a record.
Space is very weid.
I would love to go on the moon, but it would cost too much money.
From your blogging buddie,
Hannah (4KM and 4KJ)
Dear Hannah,
You would really do that? I would be freaking out. I saw that he landed on his feet! It is incredible that someone would do that.
From,
Kaylee W
Dear Hannah,
It would be fun to do flips through the air. I would probably never go skydiving in my life. I think it would be kind of scary. 23 miles is very high up and I can not imagine falling from a balloon that fast. I also think it would be a lot of money to go to space. Would you really go skydiving one day? What do you think you would do once you got to the moon?
Sincerely,
Jenna
Dear Mr.Avery,
It is very cool that someone would do that. I would never take the risk. I once jumping from like 10 feet but never close to a mile. I heard that a 14 year old girl did 35 back hand springs 😮 it was incredible.
From,
Kaylee
Dear Mr. Avery,
This has to be the best video on this blog!:razz: I’m not sure if they stopped the video then or not, but if they didn’t then you should put on the rest of it.
From Jacob
Dear Mr. Avery,
I thought that that video was cool. It was cool how he went up in that balloon thing and then jumped down from it.
Sincerely,
Olivia Y.
Dear Mr, Avery,
I really want to watch the real thing. I cant wait to see what happens.
From,
Aiden C
Hello Mr Avery and Year 6! I am Liana from Year 6 RC who are your quad blogging birthday. That is a very interesting post! I can’t imagine going skydiving in the sky- rather than sky diving in space! It looks incredibly scary and amazing. This man must be very brave. Is it really true that he traveled faster than the speed of sound? That sounds impossible. Was he OK once he landed on earth? If so his space suit must have been extremely heavy to carry enough safety and padding! I wonder if any other person will ever try and complete his amazing jump. Felix will forever be kept in history! That was a lot of thinking!
Thanks,
From Liana
Dear Liana,
I agree it is amazing that someone would ever make such a risk. I am amazed that he would do that. It is incredible that he survived such a jump.
From,
Kaylee W.
Dear Liana,
Felix was very brave to jump 120,000 feet above the earth.I believe that Felix did travel faster than the speed of sound.He must of been really scared when he was going faster than the speed of sound because that’s very fast.When Felix reached the ground you could tell how happy he was to feel the ground again.When he did get to the ground he got down on his knees and threw his hands up in the air.It took him around two and a half hours to get to 120,000 feet. If I had the chance to jump out of a space pod and jump from that great of a distance I would have to pass,not only because of the height but because of being in the space pod for around two and a half hours! To jump that great of a distance is a big accomplishment and Felix should be very proud!
From,
Jackie D.8)
Dear Mr.Avery,
Do you know when the actual jump is gonna be im so interested and I cant wait to see it .so I really want to know when its gonna happen. When I went in the blog it said that it wouldnt let me see the video so I thought that he died so I was really sad, but when I read it completely it said that it was delayed because of winds so I was releved that I didnt miss it.If it isnt a problem could you tell me what web site it has the live video on? Thanks a lot!!!!!!!! 😉
from,
Jackie D.