The Way I See It - Volume II

Okay - this is too delicious to resist...first of all, there's this French dude - a retired high-ranking paratrooper, in his 60's, determined to break a bunch of records, any one of which could cost him his life. Now - all of this may sound nuts - and probably is - but before everybody goes all weird and writes Michel Fournier off as Loony-Tunes, it turns out he does have an altruistic reason for doing this whole exercise.
Until this whole thing became news, I had never heard this unhappy factoid - maybe it's because I'm just out of the loop, quite possible - however - sometime after the Challenger explosion in the 80's, I guess there was conclusive evidence found that some of the astronauts aboard were alive in part of the shuttle that broke away from the main rocket, until their part hit the ocean! I'd never heard this before and I found the notion appalling. It was bad enough when I thought they'd all died instantly but, to think that some of them probably had as much as a minute to contemplate their deaths before they hit the water (unless they lost consciousness which is what I hope happened) - that's just horrible beyond belief.
And what does all this have to do with our record seeking skydiver? He maintains that if his efforts work out, he will prove there's a way for astronauts to be capable of escaping from a hatch such as the one that broke away from the doomed Challenger, even at extremely high altitudes and speeds. They could then free-fall until it's safe for them to parachute, instead of just continuing to plunge to earth (or to ocean) and die.
Well - that sounded laudable, I thought. Expensive, but perhaps worthwhile.
Expensive - that's the understatement of all time. Of course nothing to do with the space program is cheap but everything about this is pricey and, he was, after all, on his third try, doing this strange experiment, just this morning.
The small town of North Battleford, Saskatchewan on the Canadian prairie - an absolutely ideal spot for this event; flat, no lakes, few trees - had absolutely ideal conditions at dawn today;cloudless sky, nary a breeze. Perfect. Mayor Julian Sadlowski, North Battleford, opined optimistically, that this would surely put them on the map. Not today, Mayor Sadlowski.
As in Fournier's previous two attempts to break the world-record height jump, and be the first human to break the speed of sound in a free-fall, Michel Fournier was once again foiled by a huge helium balloon, the one needed to get him off the ground in the first place. In his last two tries , his balloon had actually torn - not very encouraging, but at least he hadn't been injured.
Today's balloon, not to get too technical, shorted out one of its moorings - and that was all it took - before anyone realized what was happening, it shimmied and shook and was, 'up, up and away', appearing, for all the world, as has been quoted elsewhere, "like an enormous jelly-fish", or a "giant light bulb". I opt for the jellyfish description myself.
Poor Fournier. Will he be able to raise enough money to buy himself another out-sized main balloon and its back-up? Even though each cost in the order of $400,000, Fournier believes he might well have backers by August and hopes to once again attempt his razzle-dazzle escapade then. Will North Battleford be the site of this amazing feat, should it take place? That, as they say, is in the wind.