Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal (link via Die Welt) had an absolutely fantastic story about the 61-year-old French daredevil Michel Fournier, who is planning to jump from 25 miles up in outer space (approximately 40 kilometers or 131,200 feet). Check out the attached graphic to see exactly how high 25 miles is - the French call it Le Grand Saut, or The Super Jump. (If you have trouble reading the graphic - the guy will break through the sound barrier in free fall, traveling faster than 700 miles per hour while he does it) Let’s just put it this way - at that jump altitude (literally, on the edge of outer space), a lot of bad things start happening to the human body:

“Belly-flopping from the edge of space isn’t just an incredibly long parachute ride. At that altitude, conditions quickly turn deadly. Above 40,000 feet, the atmosphere is so thin that unprotected people lose consciousness in around 12 seconds. Even with an air supply, nitrogen bubbles may form in the blood and soft tissue if the jumper hasn’t prepared by inhaling pure oxygen for several hours. If the jumper is unprotected above 50,000 feet or so, saliva boils off the tongue, and body parts begin swelling painfully. Lungs may hemorrhage as they and the skull fill with liquid.”

As the current record holder (a retired U.S. Air Force colonel) puts it: “Space is hostile.” With that in mind, the French daredevil/parachutist/adventurer has put together a lethal training regimen that blows away any kind of “boot camp workout” the local fitness chains put together:

“To prepare, Mr. Fournier has checked his equipment by spending hours locked in a pressure chamber at near-vacuum conditions. In another test, he donned his three-layer suit, which consists of a thermal skin that can keep him warm for 10 minutes at minus 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Over that he put on a pressure suit shielded by a windproof shell that remains pliable at low temperature. Then he stood in a wind tunnel as minus 22 degree air blasted him at 100 mph, producing an effective temperature of -238 degrees.

Mr. Fournier undergoes batteries of medical tests and avoids salt and sugar, in part because nitrogen bubbles form quickly in fat cells. He wakes daily around 5 a.m. for two hours of jogging in the ravines near his house, followed by an hour-long workout and yoga.”

Other linkage about Michel Fournier and The Super Jump:

The Super Jump [Le Grand Saut homepage]
Frenchman ready for daredevil dive [BBC News]
A French daredevil hopes to live to tell tale of 25 mile jump [Die Welt]
Jump! Jump! [Popular Science]

[image: BBC News]

Less than a month after trashing Google in a cover story, Barron’s features Barry Diller’s Internet conglomerate IAC/InterActiveCorp on the cover (”A Great ‘Net Bet”). While Google is likely overvalued, according to Barron’, IAC/InterActiveCorp is seriously undervalued. Since Barry Diller has assembled a mishmash of Internet brands in a number of different verticals, Wall Street analysts are simply unclear on how to value the Internet conglomerate. The bottom line: IAC has roughly the same annual revenue as Google, but only a fraction of the stock market valuation. As Barron’s explains in the teaser to the article: “Like many conglomerates, IAC/InterActiveCorp isn’t simple to understand. But with Barry Diller at the helm, you’re getting an oxymoron — a bargain Internet company.”

MarketWatch points out some of the key facts from the Barron’s article:

“Barry Diller’s conglomerate of Internet businesses, IAC/Interactive Corp, is undervalued by as much as 30% and could provide strong returns as it buys back shares and grows its businesses, Barron’s reported Saturday. Interactive’s businesses include the television shopping channel HSN as well as Match.com, Evite, LendingTree, Citysearch, Ask.com and Ticketmaster. Barron’s said Interactive is showing growth in all of its major businesses, which contributed to a 45% jump in fourth quarter revenue, to $1.8 billion, from $1.2 billion. In 2006, the report said revenue will likely reach $6.5 billion, with profit of $1.47 a share, up from $5.6 billion and $1.30 a share in 2005. It said analysts’ early estimates for 2007 results include revenue of $7 billion and earnings of $1.57 a share.”

Anyway, Barry Diller will be giving the keynote address at the Search Engine Strategies conference in New York City today, so it’s a good bet that he’s got a master plan for his search engine Ask.com (the search engine formerly known as Ask Jeeves) mapped out. He’s also building a cool Frank Gehry-designed HQ in New York that could end up being way cooler than the GooglePlex.

Tags: BarryDiller Barrons Google Internet