179.8 g’s involuntarily (brief deceleration), and 46.2 g’s (sustained deceleration) voluntarily.

[quote]At a standard belly-to-earth, or even back-to-earth position, an experience jumper can do a surprisingly good job of not drifting too far.”[/quote]

Capt. Kittinger dove in a standing position, due to his drogue chute.

As the sign under the entrance to the gondola says, “This is the highest step in the world.”

While several sites give the 614 mph value used in this article, the official USAF site at http://www.af.mil/history/person.asp?dec=&pid=123006518 states “Kittinger fell at speeds up to 714 mph, exceeding the speed of sound.” This is echoed by the Stratocat site at http://stratocat.com.ar/fichas-e/1960/HMN-19600816.htm.

joe said: “what ever happend to the frenchman who was to counter this record?”

The French parachutist Michel Fournier has a website about his plan to break Kittinger’s records at http://www.legrandsaut.org/ where he indicates that he will be attempting the jump again in 2007. The August 2006 attempt was called off for financial reasons after Fournier was the victim of fraud.

When researchers and Scientists do tests with gasses they almost always have the conditions at STP (standard temperature and pressure). Therefore, most likely the equation you posted does not consider the differences in pressure that would happen at much higher altitudes. Standard Pressure for gas is 1 atm. Or the pressure at sea level. So while I’m sure your equation is perfectly accurate at sea level and zero degrees celsius (standard temperature), it is probably wrong about what would be mach at higher altitudes. Therefore, you’re right probably right about how temperature effects the speed of sound. But, density of the gas (or pressure) is the much more pressing matter outside of the laboratory and perfect STP conditions.”

Sorry, no. The equation giving the speed of sound proportional to the square root of temperature is correct for anything that behaves to a decent approximation as an ideal gas. Dry air at any elevation works just fine. The constant of proportionality is different for different gases (depending on the molecular mass and the ratio of specific heats, sometimes called the adiabatic constant or expressed as a Gruneisen parameter; makes no difference), but for a given gas, if you know the temperature, you know the speed of sound, regardless of the density. This can be derived straight from dimensional analysis and the ideal gas law in about 2 lines; getting the gamma parameter right takes a couple more lines.

The idea that scientists almost always work with gases at STP is very odd. We use all sorts of temperatures and pressures, from microkelvin and picopascals to megakelvin and gigapascals and beyond. What’s the point of having an equation that works at only ONE temperature and pressure?

The equation stops working in a number of extreme cases, for example density approaching that of a liquid or solid, or temperature high enough to cause dissociation or ionization. Otherwise, if it’s much like an ideal gas, the equation is right.

Try googling “ideal gas speed of sound.”