the Walnut Diary

Like many others, no doubt, I watched online while the balloon inflated and the flight got underway.

The streamed transmission in HD worked splendidly on my MacBook Pro.  During the time that not much was happening, I kept watching for the occasional bits of movement:  what’s that guy doing with the lift truck by the crane’s back wheels?  Those guys holding that big air hose must be getting tired.  Are they ever going to set it down?

My immediate praise went out to the crane operator for his flawless handling of the launch. Everything rode on his timing and control. As the massive bag of gas swept up he drove the capsule down the runway underneath until the tether was vertical, and released it without stressing the thing in any way I could see.

From there Red Bull and Felix set up the story line as a legitimate piece of space travel/research, complete with Old Joe on the microphone.  The subtext was that Joe, who set the records in 1960, was bringing along a successor.  His kindly mentoring was flawless throughout the script. His voice was a welcome and unifying substitute for the babble of radio traffic and static I remember from radio broadcasts of early launches from Cape Canaveral.

Photography took quite a leap with clear images from over 40 miles away as the ground crew followed the craft.  The jet stream now makes sense to those of us who were along in that capsule.  We watched the displays:  interesting how it gets cold, and then warmer as the balloon goes higher.  It hovered, then took off again, no doubt due to the sun’s action on the bag.  How much can it inflate before it bursts?

The jump was flat-out terrifying when we saw the image start to spin as Felix hit the sound barrier.  Then after a beat, magically, he was stable again and we were back into our space-fantasy storyline.

Perhaps the classiest part of a very well done Internet show was the decision to open the parachute seconds before breaking the longest-freefall record.  Nothing was said of it (classy again) but Old Joe will go to his grave with his record intact.

Red Bull has pulled off a major coup in sponsoring this event and telling the story the way they did, and  I’ll never look at a Glad sandwich bag in quite the same way again.