Felix Baumgartner’s space jump relied on science, technology and some good weather

By Scott Sutherland | Geekquinox – 4 hours ago

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Australian skydiver Felix Baumgartner set three records in his successful Red Bull Stratos jump yesterday — one for the highest manned balloon flight, one for highest skydive, and another for being the first person to exceed the speed of sound without a vehicle.

Behind the safe and successful completion of the jump were several pieces of technology, some of which needed to be designed from the ground up.

[ Related: Photos of Baumgartner's supersonic jump ]

Supersonic skydive scienceCBC science correspondent Bob McDonald explains the science behind extreme skydiver Felix Baumgartner's leap from the edge of space

The capsule that took Baumgartner up for his jump took nearly 5 years to develop and test. It consisted of four main components:

• The 1.8m-diameter 'pressure sphere' — where Baumgartner sat during his ascent — housed all the instrumentation and displays, and a chair for Baumgartner to sit in on the way up. The sphere was kept at a pressure of only about 54 kilopascals (a little over half of sea level air pressure) during the mission, since that would allow Baumgartner to make the ascent without pressurizing his suit, and still minimize the risk of decompression sickness.
• Surrounding the pressure sphere was the 'cage', which was constructed of welded chromium molybdenum tubes — the same kind uses in aircraft construction — which acted as the support structure for the entire capsule.
• Around the outside was the shell, which not only provided an attractive face to the design, but its fibreglass-coated foam-insulated skin provided protection from the temperatures in the stratosphere, which can drop to lower than -50 degrees C, and its specially-designed shape provided greater stability for the capsule on its way back down to Earth.
• The 'base' of the capsule had two layers of 'honeycomb' protection, with outer 'crush pads' designed to withstand 8Gs of force to protect the capsule upon landing, and an inner aluminum 'sandwich panel' that would prevent any sharp objects on the ground from damaging the capsule as it touched down.

The balloon that took the capsule up was also specially made for the mission.

• It was made of over 160,000 square metres of plastic film, thinner than the width of a human hair (about 20 micrometres thick), but had a mass of nearly 1700 kilograms.
• When ready to fly, it was over 167 metres tall, and resembled a large ice-cream cone. As it rose and the pressure dropped, the balloon expanded becoming a round ball.

The suit Baumgartner wore was designed by the David Clark Company, which has been designing and building suits for space missions for over 50 years, and this is apparently the first suit they have ever built for a private space mission.

• It was modeled after suits worn by pilots of high-altitude spy planes.
• It was specially designed to protect Baumgartner from temperature extremes down to -68 degrees Celsius, and to keep the suit properly pressurized during the mission, to prevent 'ebullism' — where the liquid in your tissues turns to gas in the low pressure and expands dangerously.
• The suit incorporated new design features — due to a skydiver's need to use specific body positions and visual cues — that increased the mobility of the wearer and increased their visibility with the use of mirrors, which "may serve as the prototype for the next-generation full-pressure suit." according to the Red Bull Stratos website.

Baumgartner had three parachutes at his disposal during the fall.

• His main and reserve chutes were 9-cell 'ram-air' parachutes that were rated to be opened at speeds of 150 knots (277.8 km/h).
• The reserve chute included a fail-safe called 'CYPRES' (Cybernetic Parachute Release System), that would have deployed it automatically if Baumgartner was still falling at more than 35 metres per second when he reached a height of 610 metres.
• Also included was a specially-designed drogue stabilization chute, which was the first drogue chute developed for personal use (these are the chutes that pop open behind a jet aircraft, to shorten the length of runway it needs to land). This particular chute was intended to be used to stabilize Baumgartner should he be caught in an out-of-control spin during descent. A deploy button was included on his glove, however an automatic system that measured G-forces would open the chute itself if he experienced 3.5 Gs or more for a period of 6 seconds or more. This drogue chute was the first ever designed to deploy independently of a main or reserve chute.

The pack attached to the suit chest is described on the Stratos website as "a one-of-a-kind technology hub no bigger than a lunch pail."

• It housed Baumgartner's communications system, GPS and telemetry equipment,
• It also had an HD camera to record the event and equipment used by Fédération Aéronautique Internationale — the organization that handles air sports and aeronautical world records — to verify any records set in the jump
• an inertia measurement unit (IMU) kept track of Baumgartner's altitude and spin.

One other thing was crucial for the success of the mission: Good weather.

The jump was originally scheduled to take place on October 8th, however weather conditions forced him to postpone. The next day, conditions were initially calm, but a radio problem forced a delay, and by the time it was fixed the weather conditions had deteriorated. It wasn't the weather on the way down that was the problem though. High winds at the launch site threatened to damage the balloon, which is so fragile that the 'high' winds in this case are anything over 3.2 km/h. To get a feel for how fragile that makes the balloon, a wind speed of 3.2 km/h is considered 'light air' on the Beaufort Wind Scale — not even strong enough to rate as a 'light breeze' — which would likely not even be felt on the skin.

[ Related: Felix Baumgartner's space jump re-enacted with LEGO ]

One aspect of the jump has pushed Baumgartner to the forefront of space science research, which he spoke about briefly in a pre-jump statement. "Proving that a human can break the speed of sound in the stratosphere and return to Earth would be a step toward creating near-space bailout procedures that currently don't exist."

Nouriel Roubini’s ‘perfect storm’ already threatening global economy

By Noel Hulsman | Insight – 15 hours ago

Batten down the hatches.  Hold off on any serious splurges. And if you've got a steady job, cling to it closely. The devastation predicted for the global economy in 2013 has already begun, says "Dr. Doom" economist Nouriel Roubini.

Nouriel knows from bad times. The New York University business professor was one of the very few who accurately forecast the housing collapse and credit crunch that sparked the financial crisis in 2008. That prescience earned him a rank of #4 on Foreign Policy magazine's list of Top 100 Global Thinkers. And as bad as 2008 turned out to be, Roubini says 2013 is shaping up to be far worse and the wheels are already in motion.

"(The) 2013 perfect storm scenario I wrote on months ago is unfolding," Roubini said on Twitter on Monday.

"If perfect storm occurs difference btw 2008 & now is:then we had all the policy bullets;now we running out of rabbits to pull out of the hat."

This time around, he says, it's not a matter of bad mortgages in Nevada and reckless gambling on Wall Street. It's global. Emerging markets and developed ones. And the problems stretch from protests on the streets of Athens to sabre-rattling in Tehran.

Combined together, it spells uncertainty and risk, the two things that the markets hate most. The problem is that when the investors get skittish, the banks get scared, cash stops flowing, businesses scale down, and the death spiral begins.

Now, of course, Roubini didn't earn the title "Dr. Doom" by being an optimist. However, he's not just being a bear, he's backing his predictions up with some very hard-to-refute facts. These are the storm clouds gathering:

• The economies of China and India are slowing down. Fast.  China, in particular, looks like it's in for a hard landing. The rest of the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, Mexico and Turkey) are not far behind. Given how much resources and commodities those countries import, particularly from Western Canada, any downtown in demand threatens huge repercussions.
• The Euro-zone is a slow-motion train wreck. Greece, Portugal, Cyprus and Ireland will have to restructure their debt this year. Spain and Italy may very well be next. The Eurozone won't break up this year, but could very well find itself on the brink by the end of 2013. Regardless, the risk and uncertainty that will consume Europe will spread through the global equity markets. Every time a major European economy requires a bail-out, it causes a correction in Eurozone markets, which in turn, impacts North America. Every time. And Roubini sees nothing but bailouts in the months ahead.
• Tensions in the Middle East are steadily escalating. Negotiations between Tehran and Washington have failed, and Obama's decision last week to send a major troop carrier into theStrait of Hormuz, within 50 kilometers of Iran, suggest moods are darkening. There is very little chance of the U.S. launching an attack before the election in November, but after that, it is anyone's guess. What isn't in doubt, however, is what the threat of conflict in the world's richest oil region will do for the price of crude. Or what happens to the global economy when oil prices soar.
• Last, but by no means least, is the lack of tools now at policy maker's disposal. In 2008, economic regulators employed a series of measures to rescue the global economy: Bond buying programs, lowering interest rates and pouring billions into a variety of stimulus programs. Central bankers now have few tools left. Neither Europe, the BRICs nor the U.S. are in any position to deficit spend, certainly not to the extent required to make a difference. There will be no more billion-dollar bailouts of the banks. Not when financial institutions like Barclays have just had to acknowledge that its CEO made $26.6-million last year while his bank falsified reports and manipulated interest rates.  In the shadows of Occupy Wall Street and the increasing economic hardships in Europe and U.S., there is no chance whatsoever of any banker getting another billion-dollar rescue package.

So there it is. Four iron-clad reasons why the death spiral predicted for next year's global economy has already begun.

Consider yourself warned.

Pure ecstasy can be ‘safe’ for adults

Pure ecstasy can be ‘safe’ for adults; should be regulated: B.C. health officer

Tamsyn Burgmann

The Canadian Press

VANCOUVER—B.C.’s top health official says taking pure ecstasy can be “safe” when consumed responsibly by adults, despite warnings by police in Alberta and British Columbia about the dangers of the street drug after a rash of deaths.

Dr. Perry Kendall asserts the risks of MDMA — the pure substance originally synonymous with ecstasy — are overblown, and that its lethal dangers only arise when the man-made chemical is polluted by money-hungry gangs who cook it up.

That’s why the chief provincial health officer is advocating MDMA be legalized and sold through licensed, government-run stores where the product is strictly regulated from assembly line to check-out.

Just like the growing chorus for marijuana legalization, Kendall believes crushing the dirty ecstasy-saturated black market and its associated violence requires an evidence-based strategy that revolves around public health.

“(If) you knew what a safe dosage was, you might be able to buy ecstasy like you could buy alcohol from a government-regulated store,” Kendall said in an interview.

He posits that usage rates would decrease.

Several studies agree the pure substance is not so “ominous,” including research by a Harvard psychiatrist that dispels more damning earlier work.

Kendall was asked whether ecstasy, after further study around correct dosage and in a setting involving strict controls, could be safe.

“Absolutely,” he responded.

“We accept the fact that alcohol, which is inherently dangerous, is a product over a certain age that anybody can access.

“So I don’t think the issue is a technical one of how we would manage that. The issue is a political, perceptual one.”

He does not advocate promoting the drug for recreational use.

At least 16 people from B.C. to Saskatchewan have died since last July from a tainted batch of ecstasy they obtained from criminal dealers, the only way an average person can acquire the drug in Canada. It was cut with a toxin called PMMA.

Police say an average of 20 British Columbians who consume street ecstasy die each year.

Kendall and several other health colleagues liken the mutation of MDMA into a contaminated street drug to the wave of bootleg beverages during the 1920s prohibition era.

“Methyl alcohol led to huge rates of morbidity and mortality in the United States under alcohol prohibition because of illicit alcohol manufacturing,” said Dr. Evan Wood, a lead researcher at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and internationally-recognized expert in drug addiction and related policies.

“PMMA is a natural and expected consequence of the prohibition on ecstasy.”

The RCMP in B.C., who have a team dedicated to dismantling clandestine drug labs, maintain no amount of the substance is safe.

“We would view ecstasy as extremely dangerous,” said Sgt. Duncan Pound, adding police don’t distinguish between MDMA and the street drug in terms of enforcement or prevention strategies.

“Not only given the fact that it’s very hard to determine what might be in any given tablet, but the fact that there’s such an individual reaction to those tablets.”

The medical literature says that MDMA — technically 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine — sends waves of serotonin flooding through the brain. The natural brain chemical makes people feel happy, social and intimate with others.

According to Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, MDMA carries a list of potential health affects that impact each user differently. They include teeth grinding, sweating, increased blood pressure and heart rate, anxiety, blurred vision, nausea, vomiting and convulsions, even at low doses.

The drug’s letdown can include feelings of confusion, irritability, anxiety, paranoia and depression, and people may experience memory loss or sleep problems, jaundice or liver damage.

The deaths associated with street ecstasy, says the centre’s website, usually result from dehydration and overheating when teens gulp down a pill and dance the night away.

It’s also more likely to negatively impact people with other health problems and can interact with other medications people are taking, the centre said.

The medical establishment widely agrees MDMA is not addictive.

But new research suggests some of the drug’s long-stated ill effects are exaggerated.

Using MDMA does nothing to impair cognitive functioning, found one U.S. government-funded study published in the journal Addiction in February 2011.

Dr. John Halpern, a Harvard Medical School assistant professor who led the research, said pure MDMA can change core body temperature, heart rate and blood pressure in the short-term, and decrease immune resistance for a few days.

“But barring that, it appears . . . it can be safely administered, certainly through research,” said Halpern, who has studied MDMA for 15 years and advocates for medical, prescription-based use of the drug.

He hopes Canada leads the way in crafting a “sensible” MDMA strategy.

“We’ve got to do something to make sure that the sanctity of life is protected,” said Halpern, with McLean Hospital in Massachusetts. “It’s certainly worthy of a healthy discussion.”

The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies has also administered MDMA to more than 500 people in various FDA-approved clinical trials, and there has never been a serious adverse event.

“Meaning that nobody has ever required any medical attention whatsoever from overheating or from a heart attack or from a stroke or from blood pressure going up,” said Rick Doblin, who has a doctorate in public policy from Harvard and founded the privately-funded organization in 1986.

The trials were conducted with pre-screened, healthy adults who did not use other drugs.

MDMA generally only produces the “peace-love” effect that users desire at low dosages, Doblin added.

He supports Kendall’s proposal, but agreed applying it in the real world has major challenges.

“There are problems with criminalization, there are problems with legalization,” he said.

“But the problems with criminalization are worse.”

Kendall’s harm-reduction approach flies in the face of long-standing drug laws. MDMA was criminalized in Canada in 1976 and in the U.S. 1985. It was recently boosted to the top of Canada’s drug scheduling list under the federal government’s omnibus crime bill.

Kendall argued the criminal designation is not based on pharmacology, toxicology, economic analysis “or even a really good analysis of what stops people using drugs.”

MDMA ranked 17 out of 20 drugs when compared in terms of their harms, below No.1-rated alcohol, and other drugs including heroin, cocaine, tobacco, pot and steroids, according to a U.K. analysis published in The Lancet in 2010.

The research was conducted by Professor David Nutt, a former chief adviser on drugs to the British government, who asked drug-harm experts to rank both legal and illegal drugs on 16 measures of harm to the user and to wider society.

Nutt found the legal status of most drugs bears little relation to their harms.

Health Canada approved the protocol for a Vancouver-based study of MDMA as a treatment for post traumatic stress disorder three years ago. However, researchers have hit multiple roadblocks getting necessary approvals for importing and storing the drug.

Victoria Grant video on Canadian banking system

Victoria Grant video on Canadian banking system goes viral

By Liam Lahey | Yahoo! Finance Canada – 5 hours ago
It's rather remarkable that a 12-year-old girl has taken it upon herself to lay a verbal beating on the state of Canadian banking but that's exactly what Victoria Grant has done and in a most convincing fashion.

If you haven't seen it yet, the Cambridge, Ont., youth's address at the Public Banking in America conference in Philadelphia last month has become an online hit, with a YouTube video posted by her father. The video has already generated close to 75,000 hits.

In short, the young lass calls into question the state of the Canadian banking industry, "Have you ever wondered why the bankers from the largest private banks are becoming wealthier and the rest of us are not," she asks.

She doesn't hold back as she champions a greater role for theBank of Canada while openly criticizing the federal government for being in leagues with Canada's private banks to keep us all in debt. Frankly, she makes a compelling case for significant change.

"The banks and the government have colluded to financially enslave the people of Canada," she charges before encouraging anyone listening to "engage your government to stop this criminal act against the people of Canada."

On one hand, it'll be interesting to see if in about 15 years or more Victoria ends up graduating from a university and moving on to work for one of the financial institutions she takes to task. On the other, you could argue the young lady represents a critical hope for the future. No doubt some would dearly love to see this girl take a run at holding the keys to the Prime Minister's Office one day.

Are the words indeed her own? That's the great unknown. Regardless, she raises important questions that most adults don't stop to consider and now perhaps we will.

Take a look here: