Steve Truglia: A leap from the edge of space

25,279 views ・ 2009-09-09

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:18
I'm extremely excited to be given the opportunity
0
18330
3000
00:21
to come and speak to you today
1
21330
2000
00:23
about what I consider to be
2
23330
2000
00:25
the biggest stunt on Earth.
3
25330
3000
00:28
Or perhaps not quite on Earth.
4
28330
2000
00:30
A parachute jump from the very edge of space.
5
30330
4000
00:34
More about that a bit later on.
6
34330
2000
00:36
What I'd like to do first is take you through
7
36330
2000
00:38
a very brief helicopter ride of stunts
8
38330
3000
00:41
and the stunts industry in the movies and in television,
9
41330
3000
00:44
and show you how technology
10
44330
2000
00:46
has started to interface with the physical skills
11
46330
2000
00:48
of the stunt performer
12
48330
2000
00:50
in a way that makes the stunts bigger
13
50330
3000
00:53
and actually makes them safer than they've ever been before.
14
53330
4000
00:57
I've been a professional stunt man for 13 years.
15
57330
3000
01:00
I'm a stunt coordinator. And as well as perform stunts
16
60330
2000
01:02
I often design them.
17
62330
2000
01:04
During that time, health and safety has become everything about my job.
18
64330
3000
01:07
It's critical now that when a car crash happens
19
67330
4000
01:11
it isn't just the stunt person we make safe, it's the crew.
20
71330
3000
01:14
We can't be killing camera men. We can't be killing stunt men.
21
74330
2000
01:16
We can't be killing anybody or hurting anybody on set,
22
76330
2000
01:18
or any passerby. So, safety is everything.
23
78330
3000
01:21
But it wasn't always that way.
24
81330
3000
01:24
In the old days of the silent movies --
25
84330
2000
01:26
Harold Lloyd here, hanging famously from the clock hands --
26
86330
4000
01:30
a lot of these guys did their own stunts. They were quite remarkable.
27
90330
2000
01:32
They had no safety, no real technology.
28
92330
3000
01:35
What safety they had was very scant.
29
95330
3000
01:38
This is the first stunt woman,
30
98330
2000
01:40
Rosie Venger, an amazing woman.
31
100330
2000
01:42
You can see from the slide, very very strong.
32
102330
2000
01:44
She really paved the way
33
104330
2000
01:46
at a time when nobody was doing stunts, let alone women.
34
106330
2000
01:48
My favorite and a real hero of mine is Yakima Canutt.
35
108330
4000
01:52
Yakima Canutt really formed the stunt fight.
36
112330
4000
01:56
He worked with John Wayne and most of those old punch-ups you see
37
116330
3000
01:59
in the Westerns. Yakima was either there or he stunt coordinated.
38
119330
3000
02:02
This is a screen capture from "Stagecoach,"
39
122330
2000
02:04
where Yakima Canutt is doing one of the most dangerous stunts I've ever seen.
40
124330
4000
02:08
There is no safety, no back support,
41
128330
2000
02:10
no pads, no crash mats, no sand pits in the ground.
42
130330
3000
02:13
That's one of the most dangerous horse stunts, certainly.
43
133330
3000
02:16
Talking of dangerous stunts and bringing things slightly up to date,
44
136330
3000
02:19
some of the most dangerous stunts we do as stunt people are fire stunts.
45
139330
4000
02:23
We couldn't do them without technology.
46
143330
2000
02:25
These are particularly dangerous
47
145330
2000
02:27
because there is no mask on my face.
48
147330
2000
02:29
They were done for a photo shoot. One for the Sun newspaper,
49
149330
2000
02:31
one for FHM magazine.
50
151330
2000
02:33
Highly dangerous, but also you'll notice
51
153330
2000
02:35
it doesn't look as though I'm wearing anything underneath the suit.
52
155330
2000
02:37
The fire suits of old, the bulky suits, the thick woolen suits,
53
157330
3000
02:40
have been replaced with modern materials
54
160330
3000
02:43
like Nomex or, more recently, Carbonex --
55
163330
3000
02:46
fantastic materials that enable us as stunt professionals
56
166330
2000
02:48
to burn for longer, look more spectacular, and in pure safety.
57
168330
4000
02:52
Here's a bit more.
58
172330
4000
02:56
There's a guy with a flame thrower there, giving me what for.
59
176330
3000
02:59
One of the things that a stuntman often does,
60
179330
2000
03:01
and you'll see it every time in the big movies,
61
181330
2000
03:03
is be blown through the air.
62
183330
2000
03:05
Well, we used to use trampettes. In the old days, that's all they had.
63
185330
3000
03:08
And that's a ramp. Spring off the thing and fly through the air,
64
188330
2000
03:10
and hopefully you make it look good.
65
190330
2000
03:12
Now we've got technology. This thing is called an air ram.
66
192330
3000
03:15
It's a frightening piece of equipment for the novice stunt performer,
67
195330
3000
03:18
because it will break your legs very, very quickly
68
198330
2000
03:20
if you land on it wrong.
69
200330
2000
03:22
Having said that, it works with compressed nitrogen.
70
202330
3000
03:25
And that's in the up position. When you step on it,
71
205330
2000
03:27
either by remote control or with the pressure of your foot,
72
207330
2000
03:29
it will fire you, depending on the gas pressure,
73
209330
2000
03:31
anything from five feet to 30 feet.
74
211330
3000
03:34
I could, quite literally, fire myself into the gallery.
75
214330
4000
03:38
Which I'm sure you wouldn't want.
76
218330
2000
03:40
Not today.
77
220330
2000
03:42
Car stunts are another area
78
222330
2000
03:44
where technology and engineering
79
224330
2000
03:46
advances have made life easier for us, and safer.
80
226330
3000
03:49
We can do bigger car stunts than ever before now.
81
229330
2000
03:51
Being run over is never easy.
82
231330
2000
03:53
That's an old-fashioned, hard, gritty, physical stunt.
83
233330
3000
03:56
But we have padding, and fantastic shock-absorbing things like Sorbothane --
84
236330
4000
04:00
the materials that help us, when we're hit like this,
85
240330
3000
04:03
not to hurt ourselves too much.
86
243330
2000
04:05
The picture in the bottom right-hand corner there
87
245330
3000
04:08
is of some crash test dummy work that I was doing.
88
248330
2000
04:10
Showing how stunts work in different areas, really.
89
250330
3000
04:13
And testing breakaway signpost pillars.
90
253330
3000
04:16
A company makes a Lattix pillar, which is a network,
91
256330
2000
04:18
a lattice-type pillar that collapses when it's hit.
92
258330
3000
04:21
The car on the left drove into the steel pillar.
93
261330
3000
04:24
And you can't see it from there, but the engine was in the driver's lap.
94
264330
3000
04:27
They did it by remote control.
95
267330
2000
04:29
I drove the other one at 60 miles an hour, exactly the same speed,
96
269330
3000
04:32
and clearly walked away from it.
97
272330
3000
04:35
Rolling a car over is another area where we use technology.
98
275330
3000
04:38
We used to have to drive up a ramp, and we still do sometimes.
99
278330
3000
04:41
But now we have a compressed nitrogen cannon.
100
281330
3000
04:44
You can just see, underneath the car, there is a black rod on the floor
101
284330
2000
04:46
by the wheel of the other car.
102
286330
2000
04:48
That's the piston that was fired out of the floor.
103
288330
2000
04:50
We can flip lorries, coaches, buses, anything over
104
290330
3000
04:53
with a nitrogen cannon with enough power. (Laughs)
105
293330
4000
04:57
It's a great job, really. (Laughter)
106
297330
3000
05:00
It's such fun!
107
300330
2000
05:02
You should hear
108
302330
2000
05:04
some of the phone conversations that I have with people
109
304330
2000
05:06
on my Bluetooth in the shop.
110
306330
2000
05:08
"Well, we can flip the bus over, we can have it burst into flames,
111
308330
2000
05:10
and how about someone, you know, big explosion."
112
310330
2000
05:12
And people are looking like this ...
113
312330
2000
05:14
(Laughs)
114
314330
1000
05:15
I sort of forget how bizarre some of those conversations are.
115
315330
3000
05:18
The next thing that I'd like to show you is something that
116
318330
2000
05:20
Dunlop asked me to do earlier this year
117
320330
2000
05:22
with our Channel Five's "Fifth Gear Show."
118
322330
2000
05:24
A loop-the-loop, biggest in the world.
119
324330
2000
05:26
Only one person had ever done it before.
120
326330
2000
05:28
Now, the stuntman solution to this in the old days would be,
121
328330
2000
05:30
"Let's hit this as fast as possible. 60 miles an hour.
122
330330
3000
05:33
Let's just go for it. Foot flat to the floor."
123
333330
2000
05:35
Well, you'd die if you did that.
124
335330
2000
05:37
We went to Cambridge University, the other university,
125
337330
2000
05:39
and spoke to a Doctor of Mechanical Engineering there,
126
339330
4000
05:43
a physicist who taught us that it had to be 37 miles an hour.
127
343330
3000
05:46
Even then, I caught seven G
128
346330
2000
05:48
and lost a bit of consciousness on the way in.
129
348330
3000
05:51
That's a long way to fall, if you get it wrong. That was just about right.
130
351330
3000
05:54
So again, science helps us, and with the engineering too --
131
354330
3000
05:57
the modifications to the car and the wheel.
132
357330
2000
05:59
High falls, they're old fashioned stunts.
133
359330
2000
06:01
What's interesting about high falls
134
361330
2000
06:03
is that although we use airbags,
135
363330
2000
06:05
and some airbags are quite advanced,
136
365330
3000
06:08
they're designed so you don't slip off the side like you used to,
137
368330
2000
06:10
if you land a bit wrong. So, they're a much safer proposition.
138
370330
2000
06:12
Just basically though, it is a basic piece of equipment.
139
372330
4000
06:16
It's a bouncy castle
140
376330
2000
06:18
with slats in the side to allow the air to escape.
141
378330
2000
06:20
That's all it is, a bouncy castle.
142
380330
2000
06:22
That's the only reason we do it. See, it's all fun, this job.
143
382330
3000
06:25
What's interesting is we still use cardboard boxes.
144
385330
3000
06:28
They used to use cardboard boxes years ago and we still use them.
145
388330
3000
06:31
And that's interesting because they are almost retrospective.
146
391330
2000
06:33
They're great for catching you, up to certain heights.
147
393330
3000
06:36
And on the other side of the fence,
148
396330
2000
06:38
that physical art, the physical performance of the stuntman,
149
398330
4000
06:42
has interfaced with the very highest
150
402330
3000
06:45
technology in I.T. and in software.
151
405330
4000
06:49
Not the cardboard box, but the green screen.
152
409330
3000
06:52
This is a shot of "Terminator," the movie.
153
412330
3000
06:55
Two stunt guys doing what I consider to be a rather benign stunt.
154
415330
3000
06:58
It's 30 feet. It's water. It's very simple.
155
418330
2000
07:00
With the green screen we can put any background in the world on it,
156
420330
3000
07:03
moving or still,
157
423330
2000
07:05
and I can assure you, nowadays you can't see the joint.
158
425330
4000
07:09
This is a parachutist with another parachutist doing exactly the same thing.
159
429330
2000
07:11
Completely in the safety of a studio,
160
431330
3000
07:14
and yet with the green screen we can have some moving image that a skydiver took,
161
434330
3000
07:17
and put in the sky moving and the clouds whizzing by.
162
437330
4000
07:21
Decelerator rigs and wires, we use them a lot.
163
441330
3000
07:24
We fly people on wires, like this.
164
444330
2000
07:26
This guy is not skydiving. He's being flown like a kite,
165
446330
2000
07:28
or moved around like a kite.
166
448330
3000
07:31
And this is a Guinness World Record attempt.
167
451330
3000
07:34
They asked me to open their 50th anniversary show in 2004.
168
454330
4000
07:38
And again, technology meant that I could do the fastest abseil over 100 meters,
169
458330
4000
07:42
and stop within a couple of feet of the ground
170
462330
2000
07:44
without melting the rope with the friction,
171
464330
2000
07:46
because of the alloys I used in the descender device.
172
466330
3000
07:49
And that's Centre Point in London.
173
469330
2000
07:51
We brought Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road to a standstill.
174
471330
3000
07:54
Helicopter stunts are always fun,
175
474330
2000
07:56
hanging out of them, whatever.
176
476330
3000
07:59
And aerial stunts. No aerial stunt would be the same without skydiving.
177
479330
4000
08:03
Which brings us quite nicely to why I'm really here today:
178
483330
3000
08:06
Project Space Jump.
179
486330
2000
08:08
In 1960, Joseph Kittenger of the United States Air Force
180
488330
3000
08:11
did the most spectacular thing.
181
491330
3000
08:14
He did a jump from 100,000 feet, 102,000 to be precise,
182
494330
3000
08:17
and he did it to test high altitude systems
183
497330
3000
08:20
for military pilots
184
500330
2000
08:22
in the new range of aircraft that were going up to 80,000 feet or so.
185
502330
3000
08:25
And I'd just like to show you a little footage
186
505330
2000
08:27
of what he did back then.
187
507330
2000
08:29
And just how brave he was in 1960, bear in mind.
188
509330
5000
08:34
Project Excelsior, it was called.
189
514330
1000
08:35
There were three jumps.
190
515330
2000
08:37
They first dropped some dummies.
191
517330
4000
08:41
So that's the balloon, big gas balloon.
192
521330
2000
08:43
It's that shape because the helium has to expand.
193
523330
3000
08:46
My balloon will expand to 500 times
194
526330
3000
08:49
and look like a big pumpkin when it's at the top.
195
529330
2000
08:51
These are the dummies being dropped from 100,000 feet,
196
531330
2000
08:53
and there is the camera that's strapped to them.
197
533330
2000
08:55
You can clearly see the curvature of the Earth at that kind of altitude.
198
535330
4000
08:59
And I'm planning to go from 120,000 feet,
199
539330
3000
09:02
which is about 22 miles.
200
542330
2000
09:04
You're in a near vacuum in that environment,
201
544330
2000
09:06
which is in minus 50 degrees.
202
546330
3000
09:09
So it's an extremely hostile place to be.
203
549330
2000
09:11
This is Joe Kittenger himself.
204
551330
2000
09:13
Bear in mind, ladies and gents, this was 1960.
205
553330
2000
09:15
He didn't know if he would live or die. This is an extremely brave man.
206
555330
3000
09:18
I spoke with him on the phone a few months ago.
207
558330
3000
09:21
He's a very humble and wonderful human being.
208
561330
2000
09:23
He sent me an email, saying, "If you get this thing off the ground
209
563330
4000
09:27
I wish you all the best." And he signed it, "Happy landings,"
210
567330
3000
09:30
which I thought was quite lovely.
211
570330
2000
09:32
He's in his 80s and he lives in Florida. He's a tremendous guy.
212
572330
2000
09:34
This is him in a pressure suit.
213
574330
2000
09:36
Now one of the challenges of going up to altitude is
214
576330
3000
09:39
when you get to 30,000 feet -- it's great, isn't it? --
215
579330
3000
09:42
When you get to 30,000 feet you can really only use oxygen.
216
582330
4000
09:46
Above 30,000 feet up to nearly 50,000 feet,
217
586330
3000
09:49
you need pressure breathing, which is where you're wearing a G suit.
218
589330
3000
09:52
This is him in his old rock-and-roll jeans there,
219
592330
3000
09:55
pushing him in, those turned up jeans.
220
595330
2000
09:57
You need a pressure suit.
221
597330
2000
09:59
You need a pressure breathing system
222
599330
2000
10:01
with a G suit that squeezes you, that helps you to breathe in
223
601330
2000
10:03
and helps you to exhale.
224
603330
2000
10:05
Above 50,000 feet you need a space suit, a pressure suit.
225
605330
4000
10:09
Certainly at 100,000 feet no aircraft will fly.
226
609330
4000
10:13
Not even a jet engine.
227
613330
2000
10:15
It needs to be rocket-powered or one of these things,
228
615330
2000
10:17
a great big gas balloon.
229
617330
3000
10:20
It took me a while; it took me years to find the right balloon team
230
620330
3000
10:23
to build the balloon that would do this job.
231
623330
2000
10:25
I've found that team in America now.
232
625330
3000
10:28
And it's made of polyethylene, so it's very thin.
233
628330
2000
10:30
We will have two balloons for each of my test jumps,
234
630330
3000
10:33
and two balloons for the main jump, because they
235
633330
2000
10:35
notoriously tear on takeoff.
236
635330
2000
10:37
They're just so, so delicate.
237
637330
2000
10:39
This is the step off. He's written on that thing,
238
639330
2000
10:41
"The highest step in the world."
239
641330
2000
10:43
And what must that feel like?
240
643330
2000
10:45
I'm excited and I'm scared,
241
645330
3000
10:48
both at the same time in equal measures.
242
648330
2000
10:50
And this is the camera that he had on him as he tumbled
243
650330
3000
10:53
before his drogue chute opened to stabilize him.
244
653330
3000
10:56
A drogue chute is just a smaller chute which helps to keep your face down.
245
656330
3000
10:59
You can just see them there, popping open.
246
659330
2000
11:01
Those are the drogue chutes. He had three of them.
247
661330
3000
11:04
I did quite a lot of research.
248
664330
3000
11:07
And you'll see in a second there, he comes back down to the floor.
249
667330
4000
11:11
Now just to give you some perspective of this balloon,
250
671330
4000
11:15
the little black dots are people.
251
675330
2000
11:17
It's hundreds of feet high. It's enormous.
252
677330
2000
11:19
That's in New Mexico.
253
679330
2000
11:21
That's the U.S. Air Force Museum.
254
681330
2000
11:23
And they've made a dummy of him. That's exactly what it looked like.
255
683330
2000
11:25
My gondola will be more simple than that.
256
685330
3000
11:28
It's a three sided box, basically.
257
688330
2000
11:30
So I've had to do quite a lot of training.
258
690330
2000
11:32
This is Morocco last year in the Atlas mountains,
259
692330
2000
11:34
training in preparation for some high altitude jumps.
260
694330
3000
11:37
This is what the view is going to be like
261
697330
2000
11:39
at 90,000 feet for me.
262
699330
2000
11:41
Now you may think this is just
263
701330
2000
11:43
a thrill-seeking trip, a pleasure ride,
264
703330
2000
11:45
just the world's biggest stunt.
265
705330
3000
11:48
Well there's a little bit more to it than that.
266
708330
2000
11:50
Trying to find a space suit to do this
267
710330
3000
11:53
has led me to an area of technology
268
713330
3000
11:56
that I never really expected when I set about doing this.
269
716330
4000
12:00
I contacted a company in the States
270
720330
2000
12:02
who make suits for NASA.
271
722330
2000
12:04
That's a current suit. This was me last year with their chief engineer.
272
724330
3000
12:07
That suit would cost me about a million and a half dollars.
273
727330
4000
12:11
And it weighs 300 pounds and you can't skydive in it.
274
731330
3000
12:14
So I've been stuck. For the past 15 years I've been trying to find a space suit
275
734330
2000
12:16
that would do this job, or someone that will make one.
276
736330
3000
12:19
Something revolutionary happened
277
739330
2000
12:21
a little while ago, at the same facility.
278
741330
3000
12:24
That's the prototype of the parachute. I've now had them custom make one,
279
744330
3000
12:27
the only one of its kind in the world. And that's the only suit of its kind in the world.
280
747330
3000
12:30
It was made by a Russian that's designed
281
750330
2000
12:32
most of the suits of the past
282
752330
2000
12:34
18 years for the Soviets.
283
754330
3000
12:37
He left the company because he saw,
284
757330
2000
12:39
as some other people in the space suit industry,
285
759330
2000
12:41
an emerging market for space suits for space tourists.
286
761330
3000
12:44
You know if you are in an aircraft at 30,000 feet
287
764330
2000
12:46
and the cabin depressurizes, you can have oxygen.
288
766330
2000
12:48
If you're at 100,000 feet you die.
289
768330
2000
12:50
In six seconds you've lost consciousness. In 10 seconds you're dead.
290
770330
3000
12:53
Your blood tries to boil. It's called vaporization.
291
773330
2000
12:55
The body swells up. It's awful.
292
775330
2000
12:57
And so we expect -- it's not much fun.
293
777330
4000
13:01
We expect, and others expect,
294
781330
3000
13:04
that perhaps the FAA, the CAA
295
784330
2000
13:06
might say, "You need to put someone in a suit
296
786330
2000
13:08
that's not inflated, that's connected to the aircraft."
297
788330
3000
13:11
Then they're comfortable, they have good vision, like this great big visor.
298
791330
3000
13:14
And then if the cabin depressurizes
299
794330
2000
13:16
while the aircraft is coming back down,
300
796330
2000
13:18
in whatever emergency measures, everyone is okay.
301
798330
2000
13:20
I would like to bring Costa on, if he's here,
302
800330
3000
13:23
to show you the only one of its kind in the world.
303
803330
3000
13:26
I was going to wear it,
304
806330
2000
13:28
but I thought I'd get Costa to do it, my lovely assistant.
305
808330
2000
13:30
Thank you. He's very hot. Thank you, Costa.
306
810330
5000
13:35
This is the communication headset you'll see
307
815330
3000
13:38
on lots of space suits.
308
818330
2000
13:40
It's a two-layer suit. NASA suits have got 13 layers.
309
820330
4000
13:44
This is a very lightweight suit. It weighs about 15 pounds.
310
824330
4000
13:48
It's next to nothing. Especially designed for me.
311
828330
2000
13:50
It's a working prototype. I will use it for all the jumps.
312
830330
2000
13:52
Would you just give us a little twirl, please, Costa?
313
832330
3000
13:55
Thank you very much.
314
835330
2000
13:57
And it doesn't look far different when it's inflated,
315
837330
2000
13:59
as you can see from the picture down there.
316
839330
2000
14:01
I've even skydived in it in a wind tunnel,
317
841330
3000
14:04
which means that I can practice everything I need to practice, in safety,
318
844330
3000
14:07
before I ever jump out of anything. Thanks very much, Costa.
319
847330
2000
14:09
(Applause)
320
849330
4000
14:13
Ladies and gentlemen, that's just about it from me.
321
853330
2000
14:15
The status of my mission at the moment
322
855330
2000
14:17
is it still needs a major sponsor.
323
857330
2000
14:19
I'm confident that we'll find one.
324
859330
2000
14:21
I think it's a great challenge.
325
861330
2000
14:23
And I hope that you will agree with me,
326
863330
2000
14:25
it is the greatest stunt on Earth.
327
865330
3000
14:28
Thank you very much for your time.
328
868330
2000
14:30
(Applause)
329
870330
1000
About this website

This site will introduce you to YouTube videos that are useful for learning English. You will see English lessons taught by top-notch teachers from around the world. Double-click on the English subtitles displayed on each video page to play the video from there. The subtitles scroll in sync with the video playback. If you have any comments or requests, please contact us using this contact form.

https://forms.gle/WvT1wiN1qDtmnspy7