"Spencer. Spencer come here. SPENCER, COME HERE!"
"Katrina, go get Spencer. Wait, never mind. SPENCER, COME HERE RIGHT NOW!"
Geez, five-year-olds these days. You would think they would have patience to watch history in the making online on their daddy's computer or something.
Sunday morning I had my eyes glued to the YouTube feed of the Red Bull Stratos project, where Austrian Felix Baumgartner ascended to the edge of space in a giant balloon, jumped out, and accelerated well past the speed of sound only to land safely, on live broadcast, on his feet.
I couldn't help but compare this to the jump that that had been attempted by another European, Michel Fournier, who had planned on a very similar jump at North Battleford in 2003, and then again in 2008, while I was still working for the Battlefords News-Optimist. I deftly avoided that assignment, despite my keen interest in all things aerospace (I was an air cadet instructor, after all). I had no desire to see someone kill themself in front of my lens.
He tried once more in 2010, again without success. In 2008, the balloon took off without him. In 2010, his reserve parachute deployed inside his capsule just before takeoff, scrubbing the mission.
What struck me was the scale of the Baumgartner effort. While the New York Times reported in 2008 that up to that point, Fournier had spent two decades and nearly $20 million on the project, it seemed like, well, a Mickey Mouse operation compared to what the world, and I do mean the whole world, saw on Sunday.
If nothing else, we have found when Red Bull puts its backing behind a project, they pull out all the stops.
I have never seen such a slick operation. There were more camera angles than a Michael Bay movie when things are going boom. There were live links to the Internet, with live feeds to TV channels and websites around the world. Despite millions upon millions watching it at the same time, the servers didn't crash.
His command centre rivalled that of NASA. Indeed, they looked very much alike, except that the Red Bull version may have been more modern.
The tracking cameras, able to keep an eye on Baumgartner despite his flying to the edge of space vertically and quite a ways laterally, were improvements on what NASA has used to track the shuttle launches.
All of this was a far cry from anything they had in North Battleford for Fournier's earlier attempts. (I wasn't there in 2010.) While the capsule, balloon and the like were very similar, all the rest seemed, well, less Red Bullish.
It was impressive to see Baumgartner pull this off. It was even more impressive that we, as a planet, got to see it happen.
As we watched the numbers ascend to 127,000 feet, the kids and I were on edge. Then Spencer became disinterested as Baumgartner went through the checklist before opening the door and making the jump, and wandered off, eliciting the pleas seen above for him to come back.
"Is this real, Daddy?" Katrina asked.
"Very real," I replied.
So real, in fact, I was prepared to end the video feed right then and there should something bad happen. I didn't want my kids to be traumatized watching a man die before their eyes.
I suspect this is why, about a minute a minute into the freefall, the cameras cut away from his obvious flat spin. Baumgartner corrected it, however, and broke the sound barrier.
"Is this history, Daddy?" Katrina asked.
"Yes, yes it is. Just like on the Discovery Channel."
"Oh," she replied, eyes glued to the screen.
History indeed.
Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at [email protected]
