That is, until now – pilot and base jumper extraordinaire Felix Baumgartner set out to not only breaking Kittinger’s record, but also breaching the speed of sound and become supersonic. His plan, called the Red Bull Stratos project, involved a free fall from 120,000 feet tailored with specially adapted technology, including a very advanced pressure space suit. The experiment tested the limits of human endurance far beyond what we already know to be possible and lend us insight into the conditions of the edge of space and its effects on the human body.
Felix Baumgartner jumped from his capsule 128,097ft (24 Miles) above the Earth on October 14, 2012. Felix reached a maximum speed of 833 mph or Mach 1.24 which is faster than a .22 Caliber bullet or 1.5 times as fast as a passenger jet!!! He broke the record for the highest skydive (or Spacedive) and the fastest speed reached by a human without the assistance of a vehicle. This amazing feat was completed by useing a balloon and helium, the same technologies StratoStar uses to unlock student curiosity in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
Teachers can take a lot away from the Red Bull Stratos project. The adventurous spirit of the project and its desire to both further human knowledge and test human endurance could appeal to a wide variety of students. Incorporating a hands-on high-altitude balloon mission into the classroom will get students engaged with the real-world problems solving and exploration. Education can become rather tedious and dull at times, but including students on worldly progress is going to hype them up in their own studies. This is exactly what we do at StratoStar, and we are constantly reaching outward with students not only aware, but alongside of us.
At StratoStar, we envy guys like Kittinger and Baumgartner for their incredible accomplishments and experiences. However, we aren’t far separated from the Red Bull Stratos project: we help Educators launch students curiosity for knowledge into the same stratosphere using StratoStar’s turn-key kits. We want students and educators to expirence the space above us, and we aspire to gain and distribute knowledge just like these two free falling heroes. Our mission is simple: Unlock student cruriosity in STEM. Our turn-key kits take us to the sky, and to the stratosphere where students can learn and explore the reaches of our World.
