Michel Fournier’s hope to set a new free-fall record ended in farce today when his ride to the sky left without him. The helium balloon Michel Fournier, a former army paratrooper, was going to use to soar to the stratosphere detached from the capsule he was set to jump 40,000 meters (130,000 feet) from. It happened after the balloon was inflated on the ground at an airport in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, Canada, leaving the balloon to drift away into the sky without the capsule.

Fournier appeared disappointed as he left the capsule and walked to the hanger.  The daring ‘jump’ was scheduled yesterday but had to be postponed to today because of wind conditions.

Fournier wanted to break the record for the fastest and longest free fall, the highest parachute jump and the highest balloon flight. He was also trying to bring back data to help ASTRONAUTS and others survive in the highest altitudes. This is the third failed attempt for Fournier, who has employed an army of technicians, data crunchers, balloon and weather specialists to help him.

The skydivers first two attempts, in 2002 and 2003, ended when wind gusts shredded his balloon before it became airborne.

He had planned to make the jump in France, but the government denied him permission because it believed the project was too dangerous.

Fournier, with more than 8,000 jumps under his belt, would have been three-times higher than a commercial jetliner.

And the equivalent of a mountain climber ascending four Mount Everests stacked one on top of the other.

It was expected to take Fournier 15 minutes to come down, descending at 1,500 kilometers per hour (932 mph) - 1.7 times the speed of sound - smashing through the sound barrier, before finally deploying his chute about 6,000 meters (yards) above the ground.

Source: thesun.co.uk/