http://www.space.com/news/ap-080525-fou ... edive.html
NORTH BATTLEFORD, Saskatchewan (AP) - Michel Fournier began final preparations for a stunt that will, should all go well, end in the pre-dawn darkness Monday with him rising slowly in a helium-powered balloon pod up to the very void of space - and then stepping off.
The 64-year-old French skydiver aims to free fall 40,000 meters (130,000 feet) from the stratosphere in a specially designed suit, helmet and parachute to advance the cause of science and, in the process, break four free fall records.
"The jump, based on weather conditions, is planned for Monday 4 a.m. local time,'' Francine Lecompte-Gittins, spokesperson for the jump, said in an e-mail Saturday.
She is one of almost an army of technicians, data crunchers, balloon and weather specialists who have arrived at this city of 14,000 near the Saskatchewan-Alberta boundary for Fournier's third attempt.
Fournier, a former army paratrooper with more than 8,000 jumps under his belt, hopes to bring back data that will help astronauts and others survive in the highest of altitudes. He wants to also break the record for the fastest and longest free fall, the highest parachute jump and the highest balloon flight.
He will be three-times higher than a commercial jetliner. A mountain climber would have to ascend the equivalent of four Mount Everests stacked one on top of the other.
It is expected to take him 15 minutes just to come down, screaming through thin air at 1,500 kilometers an hour (932 miles an hour), - 1.7 times the speed of sound - smashing through the sound barrier, shock waves buffeting his body, before finally deploying his chute about 6,000 meters (yards) above the prairie wheat fields.
