{"id":19543,"date":"2015-12-08T19:55:44","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T11:55:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/former-google-exec-alan-eustace-looks-beyond-his-record-setting-jump-no-reason-you-cant-go-higher\/"},"modified":"2015-12-08T19:55:44","modified_gmt":"2015-12-08T11:55:44","slug":"former-google-exec-alan-eustace-looks-beyond-his-record-setting-jump-no-reason-you-cant-go-higher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/former-google-exec-alan-eustace-looks-beyond-his-record-setting-jump-no-reason-you-cant-go-higher\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Google exec Alan Eustace looks beyond his record-setting jump: \u2018No reason you can\u2019t go higher\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_216474\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-216474\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-216474 size-full-width\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/DSC09632-2-630x478.jpg\" alt=\"Alan Eustace\" width=\"630\" height=\"478\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/DSC09632-2-630x478.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/DSC09632-2-1240x941.jpg 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-216474\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Former Google executive Alan Eustace recounts his record-setting jump from the stratosphere at the University of Washington, with a photo of his descent in the background. (GeekWire photo by Alan Boyle)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>One year after setting the world altitude record for a&nbsp;jump from the stratosphere, former Google executive Alan Eustace says the sky isn\u2019t the limit&nbsp;\u2013 and neither is his record.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s no reason you can\u2019t go higher,\u201d Eustace told GeekWire today after a talk at the University of Washington\u2019s Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science and Engineering. The event was part of the&nbsp;UW&nbsp;School of Computer Science and Engineering\u2019s Distinguished Lecture Series.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" size-full wp-image-188079 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/pluto1.png\" alt=\"pluto\" width=\"250\" height=\"189\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/pluto1.png 250w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/pluto1-200x151.png 200w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/pluto1-132x100.png 132w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\"><br \/>\n<strong>Science journalist Alan Boyle<\/strong>&nbsp;is the author of &#8220;The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made A Big Difference.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Eustace, a longtime airplane pilot who retired from his post as Google\u2019s senior vice president for knowledge in March, took on the self-financed \u201cStratEx\u201d skydiving mission to&nbsp;follow through on his passion for adventure and spaceflight. (He declined to tell&nbsp;how much the adventure cost him, other than to say \u201cit was more than it should have cost.\u201d)<\/p>\n<p>The record-setting ride on Oct. 24, 2014, began with Eustace in a custom-made pressure suit, dangling from the end of a high-altitude balloon as it rose up from Roswell, N.M.&nbsp;Over the course of two and a half&nbsp;hours, he went&nbsp;into the stratosphere,&nbsp;up to an altitude of 135,890 feet (25.7 miles, or 41.4 kilometers).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can really start to see the beautiful Earth below, see the darkness of space,\u201d he recalled during today\u2019s talk.<\/p>\n<p>At the top of the ride, Eustace cut himself loose&nbsp;and plunged back toward Earth at a velocity that peaked at&nbsp;822 mph, faster than the speed of sound. His parachutes opened on cue after four and a half minutes of free fall. Fourteen minutes later, he&nbsp;came down in a remote area of eastern New Mexico. The touchdown&nbsp;point&nbsp;was 70 miles from the launch point, and&nbsp;just a mile away from his projected&nbsp;target.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI never got a single scratch,\u201d Eustace said.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"I leapt from the stratosphere. Here's how I did it | Alan Eustace\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/c-rWtqConY8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>His&nbsp;altitude surpassed the 128,100-foot record&nbsp;that had been set just two years earlier when Austrian daredevil&nbsp;Felix Baumgartner took a highly publicized jump from a pressurized capsule above New Mexico. Baumgartner\u2019s record as the world\u2019s fastest skydiver (with a top speed of 843.6 mph) still stands, but barely.<\/p>\n<p>Eustace&nbsp;said the experience had much in common with scuba&nbsp;diving&nbsp;\u2013 for example, he had to pre-breathe pure oxygen before his ascent, in order to purge the nitrogen from his bloodstream.<\/p>\n<p>But it\u2019s also analogous to spaceflight. Eustace\u2019s pressurized suit was built by Paragon Space Development Corp. and longtime spacesuit manufacturer ILC Dover, which makes the suits worn by U.S. spacewalkers at the International Space Station. The StratEx team also had to devise an innovative system for deploying Eustace\u2019s&nbsp;drogue chute without having it get tangled up, and a control system that would work even if he&nbsp;passed out on the way down.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"icon-quotes-left\"><\/span>&nbsp;If you have some other mechanism, 200,000 [feet] would be easy. \u2026 I think you probably could do it.<span class=\"icon-quotes-right\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re not counting on me being a great skydiver,\u201d Eustace said. \u201cWe\u2019re counting on the technology saving me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eustace said the systems that came together for his flight could work for even higher jumps. However, there\u2019s a limit to how high balloons can fly. Most high-altitude balloons don\u2019t rise as high as his&nbsp;balloon did, and the literature suggests that the highest-flying weather balloon went no higher than 173,890 feet (32.9 miles, or 53 kilometers) in 2002.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you have some other mechanism, 200,000 would be easy,\u201d Eustace said. \u201cI think you probably could do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For years, thrill-seekers have talked about the prospects for&nbsp;space diving&nbsp;\u2013 a feat that&nbsp;would&nbsp;involve stepping out of a suborbital rocket&nbsp;ship and plunging to Earth at supersonic speeds. The concept even&nbsp;provided a plot twist for&nbsp;the movie \u201cStar Trek Into Darkness\u201d and inspired&nbsp;product&nbsp;development efforts at&nbsp;Orbital Outfitters&nbsp;and&nbsp;Sol-X.<\/p>\n<p>But don\u2019t expect Eustace to give it a try. He said his flying days are over, in part because the pressure suit has been given over to the Smithsonian and the StratEx team is now focusing on World View Enterprises\u2019 plan to put tourists&nbsp;on stratospheric balloon flights. And then there\u2019s the matter of his marriage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t have the team, I don\u2019t have the suit, and my wife would divorce me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Former Google executive Alan Eustace recounts his record-setting jump from the stratosphere at the University of Washington, with a photo of his descent in the background. (GeekWire photo by Alan Boyle) One year after setting the world altitude record for a&nbsp;jump from the stratosphere, former Google executive Alan Eustace says the sky isn\u2019t the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5598,5599,5600,4368],"class_list":["post-19543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-alan-eustace","tag-skydiving","tag-stratex","tag-university-of-washington"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19543"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19543\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}