So, this is happening tomorrow.

The craziest moment was when he saluted, then just walked off the step.


Boss.

What a cool thing to see. I love that as the assent was happening, it wasn't on TV anywhere, and hundreds of thousands of people were watching live on youtube. We live in the future.

For me, the whole thing had added awesome when my 3 year old sat on the floor, yelling

"aaaahhhhhhhhhh, he's falling! He's gonna die! ahhhhhhhhhhh!" - during the entire descent. I couldn't quit laughing, because he's not quite old enough to explain it to him....although when it was all said and done, he stood up, turned to me and said.

"Daddy. He fell from outer space and didn't get hurt. That was amazing."

I'm glad I was able to watch it.

evillepaintball wrote: Reb Cpl wrote: "He fell from outer space and didn't get hurt. That was amazing." pretty well sums it up

rednekk98 wrote: CNN is claiming Mach 1.24 @ 833mph. Holy crap, that was nuts. You could tell from his demeanor when he went to stand up that he was set, calm, and focused, hence he pulled out of the spin. The view from the capsule showing his acceleration was what really made it for me. One of the more amazing manned space-related events I've seen in my lifetime, considering the others were shuttle disasters.

I think they mentioned during he ascent that the spin was expected as he came out of the supersonic fall.

Still, absolutely incredible. I laughed a little when he said it felt like he'd been falling for half an hour(at the 3:00 mark). Wish his mask had let him fall the last 15-30 seconds he had planned on.

I'm aware that spin was a problem he'd trained for, and though I don't know how thick the atmosphere is up there or how easy it is to control yourself while traveling through it at 700mph (I suspect there are 2-3 people on the planet who really do) it seems that it was something that would have got worse quite quickly if control wasn't established before the atmosphere got thicker, and tat may have left him unable to regain control of the spin. I'm also aware that the chutes automatically deploy at a certain altitude in case someone loses consciousness, but also aware that mechanical things can fail and cause a dirt-dart. I've never jumped out of a plane, but I've jumped off cliffs into water just enough to know that acceleration is surprisingly fast, and that it takes some focus to get stable and in form in a quick fashion.