Ominously, in the hours before Felix Baumgartner’s historic descent from the stratosphere, (yes, that is higher than Mary Poppins’ kite flies) at a speed that broke the sound barrier, (yes, that is faster than Usain Bolt runs), Reuters published a list of several things that could go wrong with the jump. The perturbing scientific dangers included: ‘Exposure to vacuum could cause Baumgartner’s blood to literally boil.’ Thankfully, none of these mishaps were realized. However, there were some more practical risks that Reuters missed out on, and that the gung-ho opportunist may still be susceptible to…
Red Bull, who sponsored Felix, did so on the condition that during his 36.5 km, two and a half hour ascent, the skydiver would drink around a pint of their latest product ‘Red Bull Max’ every twenty minutes in a marketing ploy to justify their tagline ‘it gives you wings’. Consequences of this may include recurrent shaking, period head jerks, and chronic diarrhoea.
Breaking the sound barrier can have the lasting effect of not only speeding up, but also dramatically raising the pitch of audio processed by the brain. The consequences of this would make Biggie’s iconic verse on ‘Juicy’ sound like Chipmunk, with a testicle removed, reciting Twista’s lyrics on ‘Slow Jamz’. ‘Audio-compressant-mutation’ is also known to make baby’s cries resemble police sirens and washing machines sound like the static noise of a walky-talky. A previous victim of this phenomenon developed schizophrenia, living half of his life as Dave from Chester, and the other half as Vladimir, a Russian spy.
History tells us that the exposure of an ambitious Austrian to abnormal volumes of dangerous gas may be to the detriment of the human race.
In penetrating the o-zone layer, Felix created a hole that exposed him to extraordinary amounts of Ultra-Violet rays. Facing the light in the seconds following this penetration would lead to a frontal darkening comparative only to the skin-tone of George Michael and Jodie Marsh’s love child after forty five minutes on a sun bed in the desert. The ‘man-silhouette-ozone-hole’, as critics are calling it, is also extremely detrimental to the environment.
On his approach into New Mexico, at around four hundred feet, Felix would have encountered the invisible gas-layer of anthrax the US government dispersed in 2001 in an attempt to decrease the number of Mexican immigrants being catapulted across the border. Any wear in his attire, resulting from his descent, would have left him severely exposed.
Mr. Baumgartner, I am happy that the wings Red Bull gave you were sturdier than Icarus’ dad gave to him. I am also also glad you were greeted with celebration when you touched ground (I doubt Icarus got the same reception). The question remains, though: after the dust settles, the Facebook statuses stop and the groupies get back on One Direction’s tour bus – was it worth getting that close to the sun?