American computer scientist
Robert Alan Eustace
(born 1957) is an American computer scientist who served as Senior Vice President of Engineering and first Senior Vice President for Knowledge at
Google
until retiring in 2015.
[3]
On October 24, 2014, he made a
free-fall
jump from the
stratosphere
, breaking
Felix Baumgartner
's world record. The jump was from 135,890 feet (41.42 km) and lasted 15 minutes, an altitude record that stands as of 2024
[update]
.
[2]
[4]
He won the
Laureus World
Action Sportsperson of the Year
in 2015.
[5]
Early years
[
edit
]
The son of a
Martin Marietta
engineer, Eustace grew up in
Pine Hills, Florida
, then a working-class suburb of
Orlando
, where small ranch houses had been built for employees of the Martin Marietta Corporation.
[6]
After graduating from
Maynard Evans High School
in 1974, he received a debate scholarship from
Valencia College
and attended it for a year before transferring to
Florida Technological University
?now known as the
University of Central Florida
?to major in mechanical engineering.
[6]
As a university student, Eustace worked part-time selling popcorn and ice cream in Fantasyland and working on the monorail at
Walt Disney World
.
[6]
After taking a class on
computer science
, he decided to switch majors and ended up completing three academic degrees in the field, including a doctorate in 1984.
[6]
Professional career
[
edit
]
After graduation, Eustace worked briefly for Silicon Solutions, a
startup
in
Silicon Valley
,
[6]
before joining
Digital
,
Compaq
and then
HP
's Western Research Laboratory, where he worked 15 years on pocket computing, chip multi-processors, power and energy management, internet performance, and frequency and voltage scaling. In the mid-1990s, he worked with Amitabh Srivastava on
ATOM
, a binary-code instrumentation system that forms the basis for a wide variety of program analysis and computer architecture analysis tools.
[7]
These tools had a profound influence on the
EV5
,
EV6
and
EV7 chip
designs.
Eustace was appointed head of the laboratory in 1999, but left it three years later to join
Google
, then a new startup.
[6]
At Google, he worked as Senior Vice President of Engineering until he retired from that section of Google on March 27, 2015.
Eustace is currently Technical Advisor
[8]
at Opener Aerospace, sometimes giving interviews
[1]
about their electric VTOL aircraft, the
Opener BlackFly
.
In the course of his professional career, Eustace co-authored nine publications and appeared as co-inventor in ten patents.
Stratosphere jump
[
edit
]
In 2011, Eustace decided to pursue a stratosphere jump and met with
Taber MacCallum
, one of the founding members of
Biosphere 2
, to begin preparations for the project.
[2]
Over the next three years, the
Paragon Space Development
technical team designed and redesigned many of the components of his parachute and life-support system.
[1]
[2]
The Paragon team integrated systems for the Stratospheric Explorer mission code named
StratEx Space Dive
.
[9]
On October 24, 2014, Eustace made a jump from the
stratosphere
, breaking
Felix Baumgartner
's
2012 world record
.
[10]
The launch-point for his jump was from an abandoned runway in
Roswell, New Mexico
, where he began his
gas balloon
-powered ascent early that morning.
[10]
He reached a reported maximum altitude of 135,908 feet (41.425 km; 25.7402 mi), but the final number submitted to the
World Air Sports Federation
was 135,889.108 feet (41.419000 km; 25.7365735 mi).
[2]
The balloon used for the feat was manufactured by the Balloon Facility of the
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
, Hyderabad, India.
[1]
Eustace in his pressure suit hung tethered under the balloon, without the kind of capsule used by Felix Baumgartner. Eustace started his fall by using an explosive device to separate from the
helium balloon
.
[11]
His descent to Earth lasted 4 minutes and 27 seconds
[12]
and stretched nearly 26 miles (42 km) with peak speeds exceeding 822 miles per hour (1,323 km/h),
[10]
setting new world records for the highest free-fall jump and total free-fall distance 123,414 feet (37.617 km; 23.3739 mi).
[13]
However, because Eustace's jump involved a
drogue parachute
, while Baumgartner's did not, their vertical speed and free-fall distance records remain in different categories.
[14]
[15]
Unlike Baumgartner, Eustace, a twin-engine jet pilot, was not widely known as a daredevil prior to his jump.
[2]
Eustace's world record jump was featured in two episodes of
STEM in 30
, a television show geared towards middle-school students by the
National Air and Space Museum
.
[16]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
"StratEx"
. Paragon
. Retrieved
October 27,
2014
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
Markoff, John (October 24, 2014).
"Parachutist's Record-Breaking Fall: 26 Miles, 15 Minutes"
.
The New York Times
. Retrieved
October 24,
2014
.
- ^
"Management team"
. Retrieved
October 24,
2014
.
- ^
Markoff, John (October 27, 2014).
"15 Minutes of Free Fall Required Years of Taming Scientific Challenges - For World Record, Alan Eustace Fought Atmosphere and Equipment"
.
The New York Times
. Retrieved
October 31,
2014
.
- ^
"PAST WINNERS"
.
Laureus Sport for Good Foundation
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
Kassab, Beth (December 13, 2011).
"Google exec remembers growing up in Pine Hills"
. Orlando Sentinel
. Retrieved
October 25,
2014
.
- ^
A. Srivastava and A. Eustace,
ATOM: A system for building customized program analysis tools
, Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming language design and implementation (PLDI '94), pp. 196?205, 1994; ACM SIGPLAN Notices - Best of PLDI 1979-1999 Homepage archive, Vol. 39, No. 4, pp. 528?539;
doi:10.1145/989393.989446
- ^
"Opener"
.
- ^
"StratEx Mission"
.
paragonsdc.com
. Paragon
. Retrieved
December 8,
2020
.
- ^
a
b
c
"Google VP's 135,908-foot leap breaks world record for highest free-fall parachute jump"
.
The Verge
. October 24, 2014
. Retrieved
October 24,
2014
.
- ^
Leidich, Jared (September 29, 2016).
The Wild Black Yonder
. Denver, CO: Stratospheric Publishing.
ISBN
978-0997691900
.
- ^
Eustace, Alan.
"Transcript of "I leapt from the stratosphere. Here's how I did it"
"
. Retrieved
November 10,
2018
.
- ^
"Google's Alan Eustace beats Baumgartner's skydiving record"
.
BBC News
. October 24, 2014
. Retrieved
October 25,
2014
.
- ^
"Baumgartner's Records Ratified by FAI!"
.
FAI
. February 22, 2013. Archived from
the original
on March 2, 2013
. Retrieved
October 26,
2014
.
- ^
"Alan Eustace, D-7426, Bests High-Altitude World Record"
.
U.S. Parachute Association
. October 24, 2014. Archived from
the original
on October 3, 2015
. Retrieved
October 26,
2014
.
- ^
The Engineering Behind a Record-Breaking Skydive
, retrieved
February 6,
2019
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Leidich, Jared
The Wild Black Yonder, The Inside Story of the Secret Trip to the Edge of Earth's Atmosphere for the Highest Balloon Flight and Skydive of All Time
. Stratospheric Publishing, 2016.
ISBN
0997691905
External links
[
edit
]
Records
|
Preceded by
|
Highest space dive
(41.419 km)
October 24, 2014 ? present
|
Current holder
|