The night-walkers of Uganda

 
resistance
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The man who will free-fall to Earth 
From over 130,000ft, the ultimate parachute 
jumper will break the sound barrier while on his 
way down
Caroline Davies
May 25, 2008 
For twenty years Michel Fournier has been
planning an amazing adventure. He is planning
to fly to the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere.
There he will experience the weightlessness
and deep blackness of space, look down at the
Earth – and then jump. Now the 64-year-old
retired French army officer is finally going to live
that dream. Today, if the weather is good, he will
attempt a parachute jump from almost 25 miles
(40 km) above Saskatchewan in Canada.
Fournier will sit inside the pressurised gondola
of a 650ft balloon and make a two-hour journey
up to 130,000ft (nearly 40,000 metres). Then,
wearing only a special spacesuit, helmet and
parachute, he will jump out of the gondola and fall
back down to Earth. It will take 15 minutes and he
will travel at speeds faster than the speed of sound.
It is extremely dangerous and he might die. At
40,000ft there is not enough oxygen to breathe
and he could suffer an embolism, which would
kill him. At a height of 12 miles above the Earth,
if there is a problem with his spacesuit, his blood
might start to boil because of the air pressure.
If his skin becomes open to the air, he will lose
consciousness and suffer brain damage within a
few minutes.
But if he succeeds, he will break four world
records, falling longer, further and faster than any
human has ever fallen before. “It’s not a question
of world records,” he said from his base in North
Battleford. “What is important is to see what the
results of the jump are and if it can help to make
space travel safer. But the main question all the
scientists are asking is, can a man survive when
travelling faster than the speed of sound?”
Fournier used to be a paratrooper. He has been
preparing for this jump for 20 years. In 1988 the
French space agency wanted someone to free-
fall and parachute from the edge of the Earth’s
atmosphere to test possible methods of escape
for astronauts. After physical and psychological
tests, they chose Fournier but then they stopped
the programme. So he decided to do it himself.
He sold his home and most of his belongings and
tried to raise the $20m he needed for training
and equipment. He has tried twice before, but
bad weather or technical problems stopped him
getting off the ground.
But from today there is a small window of
opportunity when the weather conditions are
perfect and Fournier and his 40-strong team want
to use that opportunity. Fournier will breathe pure
oxygen for two to three hours before take-off to
prevent decompression sickness. He will then
rise in the giant balloon to the edge of space.
Then the pressure will gradually decrease to
allow him to make his jump.
He will be in free-fall for around eight minutes
and will be travelling faster than the speed of
sound (770mph) inside 40 seconds. He will
continue to a speed of around 1,000mph. At
lower altitude, wind resistance will slow him down
and his parachute will open at around 20,000ft.
If he succeeds, he will break records for the
fastest free-fall, the longest free-fall, the highest
altitude for a human balloon flight, and the
highest parachute jump. The previous record
jump from a balloon was in 1960 by Joe Kittinger,
now aged 79, a former US Air Force pilot who
jumped from 102,800ft and travelled at more
than 600mph. He has been writing to Fournier. “I
told him many years ago, it’s definitely beautiful
but very dangerous. If there is a problem with the
spacesuit, you will die,” he said.
Fournier is not the only man who is trying to
break the records. Steve Truglia, a 45-year-old
stuntman from London, is planning to jump from
an even higher altitude than Fournier in July.
Jean Harel, a member of Fournier’s team, says
that he believes Fournier will succeed. “It is
impossible not to be involved in this dream, no
matter how difficult it seems.”