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" Why are you doing this, and how have you prepared to pull it off? The reason why Im doing this: I like to challenge myself. I love projects where we have to start from scratch. This is what we did five years ago, getting the team together, finding the right people to work with. Were very lucky to have Joe Kittinger [the current world record holder for the highest dive] on board because hes the only one whos been there and done that, and he provides a lot of valuable data to us. Hes also a great character, and its an honor to work with Joe.   If you look at my background, from where Im coming from as a BASE jumper, it pretty much was my parachute and my old skills. Doing the jump now, Im working together with a lot of people, sometimes more than 40 people in the team. And thats a lot to handle. A lot of different characters, a lot of different opinions. Sometimes if you address a problem, you have scientists with a lot of different opinions and its hard to find the right solution. So it was hard to get the knowledge in a very short amount of time. Youre going to attempt a 60,000-foot test jump sometime between March and May, followed by another at 90,000 feet starting in July. Then you plan to make the 120,000-foot attempt the same summer. Whats the biggest challenge in achieving all this in 2012? Our biggest limit is the balloon [which carries the capsule to launch altitude]. Its a 600-foot-high balloon, and its made out of polyethylene, which is a very thin plastic foil. Its pretty much like a dry-cleaner bag, and its very fragile. So to launch a balloon that size is really, really difficult. Thats the reason why we did two unmanned launches a couple of months ago, just to see how the launching works, and [that team] did an awesome job. Its providing us with a lot of confidence to see these guys working on the balloon.   What we . . . launched is a 5-million-cubic-foot balloon. What were going to use for the big one is a 30-million-cubic-foot balloon. So its a lot bigger, and we cannot have surface winds while we launch. And in the summertime in New Mexico . . . its like a huge landing zonethats why we selected it. There are not a lot of mountains there and not a lot of obstacles sticking out, because its hard to tell where the balloon is going on the actual day.   So in the summertime theres less wind, the air is really dry, so its good for filming from the ground, and its pretty much the reason why we selected Roswell and why we said okay: Our launch window starts in the summer, and beyond October its hard to launch a balloon. Because just a little wind will tear the balloon apart while we launch. If the polyethylene is so fragile, why not use thicker material? The thing is, were heavy. The capsule and balloon is already superheavy. The capsule is 2900 pounds. To get that weight up to 120,000 feet is really difficult because at the very end of flight, theres almost no air left. Its like a vacuum. You need a balloon so much bigger to capture the last couple of thousand feet. Thats the reason the balloon is so big.   Joe Kittinger in the old days, he was much lighter. He was in an open gondola, he was not using so many cameras. Thats the reason why he could have so much smaller of a balloonI think his was [3] million cubic [feet]. Theres a lot of unfamiliar technology involved here, and this is quite a departure from what youve done before. So how confident are you in the technology? When I started I did not have a lot of confidence, of course, because I had never worn a spacesuit, I had never worked with so many people on a project, and I am not a scientist. So it took awhile to adapt myself to the situation. But I did. And I think practicing is key in the whole project. The more your practice, the more confident you are.   Spending a lot of time in the suit is really important, because in the beginning this suit feels like a big handicap. Its hard to move in the suit . . . it limits your eyesight, especially on the ground. And it gets worse as soon as youre airborne and you step out of an airplane. [After] all of my past jumps, I felt like this was my first skydive. Youre stiff.   When your parachute opens, the first thing you normally do is you look up and see if its open. You cannot look up in that helmet; its the reason why we had to put some mirrors on my gloves, so you have to look in your mirror first to see if your parachute is open.   We had to dislocate the [parachute] handles because that suit is sometimes so stiff that you cannot grab the handles on the original place. So just think about it. When youre in an emergency situation, normally you do what youre used to doing. And Ive been skydiving for the past 25 years. And now my handles are in a different place. You have a pull handle for the main parachute, and you have a pull handle for your surf parachute, plus two release handles so just in case the main parachute does not open, you can pull your reserve parachute. So there are a lot of different things you have to manage.   The same thing in the capsule. There are so many buttons [because] you have to maintain a special environment in the capsule. Were working with [a] two-dozen-foot pressure difference, so theres a little bit more pressure inside the capsule than outside the capsule. The reason why is that it pushes my door against the seal to make sure the capsule stays pressurized. And on the way up youre losing outside pressure, and you have to make up for that pressure loss on the way up. So that means you have to release pressure inside the capsule as well. Otherwise it will overpressurize the capsule.   Also, if you exhale, you exhale oxygen through your suit valve into the capsule. You fill up the capsule with oxygen. That means you have more and more oxygen inside the capsule, and if you push a button, there could be a spark that lights a fire. So you stay below 20 percent oxygen inside the capsule all the way up. So those guys will keep me really busy on the way up.   Also, I have to be trained. If [I] lose communication with mission control, I have to run the whole show by myself. . . Im pretty much flying a gas balloon by myself and therefore had to go to Albuquerque, N.M., to do a gas balloon license. Would you say this is your most dangerous record-breaking attempt of all time? It is, because its a very hostile environment. Normally on a BASE jump, its the free-fall part that is dangerous, but the environment is not hostile. Here, the free-fall part is dangerous and I am in a hostile environment, and I have to totally rely on the equipment. That pressure suit has to provide pressure and oxygen. and it has to be tough because it has to withstand while Im going through the sound barrier.   If the pressure suit fails, my tissues would start to swell up and moisture in my eyes and in my mouth would start to boil. Also, the moisture in my blood would start to boil. So you totally rely on your equipment, and thats hard to deal with in the beginning. Normally its my skills that are enough to stay alive, but here I need my team on the ground.   If they come out with the wrong judgment, I might die. If my equipment fails, I might die. Thats the reason why were testing so much, and thats the reason why were doing so many build-up jumps. How long will the jump last? The free-fall part is a little more than 5 and a half minutes. I would say its another 5 minutes on the parachute. So from the moment when I step off the capsule, between 12 and 15 minutes I will be on the ground. What do you think the single most dangerous part of this production will be? (laughs) We have a couple of different moments. Launching a balloon that size is already a project within the project. Thats what we figured on our last test launch, which was unmanned. If theres just a little bit of wind, the heat is on.   On the actual day, they will have never launched a balloon that size. Plus, theres a human on board. Its one thing to launch something with payload. If you do something wrong, you pretty much damage equipment. But if theres a person on board its a different ballgame.   On the way up, I dont see that much of a problem because Im properly trained, we know what to do, the whole team knows what to do. As long as you dont enter some severe wind shears that will tear the balloon apart, its not a problem. Were sending up a test balloon early in the morning so we know what to expect.   At altitude, when the balloon starts to level off, we start with the egress procedure. ... Climbing out of the capsule is a key moment, but I dont think a key moment in terms of danger. Its more a key moment moment in terms of, wow, this is what weve been working toward the last five years.   Then you step off, and within the first 30 seconds, youre going to break the sound barrier . . . We do not know what to expecthow the human body reacts physically and from an aerodynamic perspective when it hits the sound barrier. This will be the key moment of the whole project, to everyone. Everything else has been tested before. Only the supersonic part of it [has not]you cannot train to fly supersonic. You can either go for it or not. Youve got some competition out there. Michael Fournier has tried for many years to jump from 132,000 feet. Hes seen quite a few setbacks, but weve heard that he plans to attempt something this year. Given that your own jump was delayed, are you worried about it? Well, were always worried by competitors. I really have a lot of respect for Michael Fournier because he has been doing this for 20 years. I think hes sold his house and his gun collection and all of these things just to make his dream come true. So I admire that a lot, because I know exactly how he feels.   [But] Im not sure if he will do it or not because he announces this every year. Just by having the experience and knowing how difficult it is, because we went through a lot the last couple of years, we know its not going to be easy, no matter who tries it.  You got hit with a lawsuit over this jump in 2010 through 2011, which was surely a lot of fun. Where are you now mentally compared to where you were then? Before, when we had to stop because of the lawsuit, I was right there. We did a lot of testing, I was spot on, I was pumped, I had all of the knowledge, I was properly trainedand then we had to pull the plug to make sure we settled this out of court. Its hard to maintain your physical training. Its hard to maintain your knowledge over all of this time, because I didnt know how long that was going to take. We were not allowed to touch anything at that time.   But I did maintain my knowledge, I maintained my workout. I did a lot of helicopter flying at that time, just to keep myself a little bit sidetracked. It was a lot of fun. It was good to have a little break, but now Im totally motivated and cannot wait to do it. Will you be lonely up there? That is something that people do not understand. You do not see it from the outside. If you . . . [are] wearing a spacesuit, you think, okay, this is itnot a big deal . . . [for an attempt lasting] 20, 30, or 40 minutes. Its not a big problem. But if it comes close to an hour, its hard to deal with the loneliness inside the suit. Because as soon as you lock your visor, you dont hear anything from the outside, youre totally by yourself. The only thing that you can hear [is your mind]. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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