What would happen to a human being if he broke the speed of sound with his body?

Question

If Captain Kittinger jumped from a little higher he would've created a sonic boom!

Does it hurt, or would the density be low enough to cause the sonic boom's energy per cubic meter level to be negligable?

Answer 1

There would be a large amount of stress put upon the body. The Human body would also have to be able to stretch; it is said that the jets that have broken the speed of sound have stretched up to six inches due to the speed and wind resistance.

Answer 2

We do it al the time in airplanes

If you are asking what would happen if we did while in free fall like skydiving? The answer wold be its impossible the terminal velocity of a human is 125 miles per hour.
...unless you were on a different planet or weighed your self down by a few 1000 pounds.

If it was possible would it hurt?
Probly not unless you had a really noisy jet engine strappedon your back there wouldnt be a sonic boom! so you would be fine....Yo just wouldnt be able to hear anything far away.
Maybee if you were screaming as loud as you can you might be able to create a mini sonic boom but not loud enough to do any damage

Answer 3

The man that did the worlds tallest skydive did break the sound barrier or was very close to it and was fine. He jumped from a balloon from like 80,000 feet (mask and suit of course since he was above Armstrong's line. Since there was little air up there he reached these extreme speeds. Since there was little air there was also little friction so that was definitely to his advantage. Fighter pilots have ejected at 500 mph before, and if not done exactly correctly, had limbs torn off and were killed. This was not even the speed of sound.

Answer 4

the speed is not the problem.

Its the friction with the air.

And.. the human body's aerodynamics are such that "terminal velocity" is appx 200 mph if you work VERY HARD to minimize drag. That's about 1/4 the speed of sound....

Free fall from 90,000 ft in a space suit... you might approach 600 mph in the thin air... but as the air gets thicker, you slow. So essentially its impossible to have a human body exceed the speed of sound.

Answer 5

I have to agree with the guy who said "what a mess".
Our fighter jets have to slow down to below mach 1 prior to the pilot ejecting from the plane, or the pilot MUST be encapsulated in a protective shield.
The force (friction) of the air acting on the unprotected human body - well, "what a mess" just about describes it!

Answer 6

Passengers have been ejected from airliners that broke up at subsonic speed, due to bomb, collision, etc. The first thing that happens is their clothes disappear. At supersonic speed without special clothing, if you were facing the wind, your lips would probably open wide, engulf your head and end up in back, ripping the skin off your skull. If you go feet first, you'd get an air enema, which would explode you body.

Answer 7

there would be tons of stress on the body right before it passed the mach 1 speed barrier. Whenever they were making the first jets capable of doing mach 1 the jets had to be built stronger to handle the force it takes to pass the barrier.

Answer 8

Probably the same thing that would happen to a human being strapped to the front of a jet that broke the sound barrier.

Answer 9

I remember reading that a pilot suffered a number of injuries on breaking the sound barrier. Now imagine him doin it without being in the jet with the protective stuff... >.<;

Answer 10

Hull temps typically reach over 200 F going under the speed of sound so the person would burn first, I think