Basejumper.com - archive

this was in mt inbox this morning, thought i'd share . . .

clicky

That was interesting to watch thanks for sharing.

what did they accomplish ? other than being put in Guinness book ? I know you dont need a reason to invent, build or change but is this necessary for human flight advancement or is it just an excuse to exercise the brain on problem solving ? It is a cool and fun idea of flapping your wings that was put to reality but does the reality adapt to real life for any real advancement for human flight ? Looks like another Pile-$$$$ of grant money or the likes squandered on ???
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Nothing was accomplished upon landing on the moon other than actually doing it, a few rocks, and beating the Russians.

The biggest accomplishment was not the landing on the Moon. But was getting there and then landing back here without dieing . Personally I like Orville and Wilbur's deal better over this delicate fragile carbon-fiber & foam flapping thing. It is an accomplishment but I only see a small step that stops there for advancment but took a shitload of research. work & money and only flaps.
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In many cases the journey is more important than the end result.

i disagree. but thats a whole different discussion.

Well, we could start by naming the endless technology that was developed for just the training of the pilots. and eventually come around to talk about the social awareness of space exploration. same page?

There were all the technologies developed that are now being used for completely different purposes in every day life.

I don't agree on this. We need these kind of wacky new ideas to move our research forward. 9 out of 10 of the projects wont lead to anything, but that last 10th project that works makes it all worthwhile and takes the research on a subject to a new level. If you only give grants to the things you know for sure is going to be good then you wont get those extremely smart inventions that most people never thought would work. Einstein once said: ”Leaving research exclusively in the hands of engineers, we would have perfectly functioning oil lamps, but no electricity.”