Stratospheric Skydive Suffers Setback

A French skydiver's hope to set a new free-fall record was dealt a new setback Tuesday - his ride to the sky left without him.

The helium balloon Michel Fournier was going to use to soar to the stratosphere detached from the capsule he was going to use to jump from 130,000 feet.

It happened as the balloon was being inflated on the ground at the airport in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. The balloon drifted away into the sky without the capsule.

Fournier, 64, had planned to make the attempt Monday, but had to postpone his plans because of weather conditions.

Fournier hopes to break the record for the fastest and longest free fall, the highest parachute jump and the highest balloon flight. He also hopes to bring back data that will help astronauts and others survive in the highest of altitudes.

An army of technicians, data crunchers, balloon and weather specialists arrived recently in North Battleford, a city of 14,000 near the Saskatchewan-Alberta boundary, for the attempt.

Attempts in 2002 and 2003 ended when wind gusts shredded his balloon before it even became airborne.

Fournier had planned to make the jump in his native France, but the government denied him permission because it believed the project was too dangerous. He then came to North Battleford, an agricultural and transportation hub northwest of Saskatoon.

Spokeswoman Francine Lecompte-Gittens said Monday's postponement was due to unfavorable weather.

Fournier, a former army paratrooper with more than 8,000 jumps under his belt, hopes to 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 Fournier 15 minutes just to come down, screaming through thin air at 932 miles per 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 yards above the prairie wheat fields.