Skydiver's 130,000ft space plunge foiled ... after his giant balloon floats off without him

A French skydiver, who planned to make a record-breaking jump from the edge of space, was dealt a fresh blow after his balloon left without him on board.



The helium balloon Michel Fournier was going to use detached from the capsule as it was inflated on the ground.



Mr Fournier, 64, appeared disappointed as left the capsule and walked to the hanger.He was hugged by members of his entourage.



The balloon was reported to have cost at least £127,000 and Fournier was said to have already exhausted his finances.

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Up: The helium balloon floated away from the capsule as it was being inflated

Up: Helpers look on as the project ends in disaster

And away: The helium balloon of Michel Fournier disappears into the distance

The daredevil had already delayed lift-off on Monday because of weather conditions. But he had said: "I feel that tomorrow I'm going to be lucky."

He had hoped to reach the stratosphere above Canada in a capsule attached to a massive helium balloon and then step out and free fall 130,000 feet in a specially designed suit, helmet and parachute.

But the balloon drifted off without him into the sky at North Battleford airport in Saskatchewan. Fournier, a former army paratrooper with more than 8,000 jumps under his belt, wanted to bring back data that will help astronauts and others survive in the highest of altitudes.

He made a couple of attempts at the record in previous years, but they ended in failure.

He wants to break the record for the fastest and longest free fall, the highest parachute jump and the highest balloon flight. The jump would take him 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.

Fournier's launch manager, Dale Sommerfeldt, acknowledged that the overcast skies and wind gusts of 40 kph (25 mph) at the launch site were troublesome on Monday.



"Times like this look really, really bad, but in less than 12 hours it could be completely changed," Sommerfeldt said yesterday.



Ideally, the ground speed winds would be no more than 10 kph (6 mph) in order for the crew to launch the massive balloon.

Back to the drawing board: Michel Fournier watches his helium balloon that lifted off without him

Sommerfeldt is one of an army of technicians, data crunchers, balloon and weather specialists who have arrived at North Battleford, a city of 14,000 near the Saskatchewan-Alberta boundary, for Fournier's third attempt.

The first two - in 2002 and 2003 - ended when wind gusts shredded his balloon before it even became airborne.

Michel Fournier leaves the capsule after aborting his first attempt to launch his helium balloon on Monday

It was expected to take Fournier 15 minutes just to come down, screaming through thin air at 1,500 kilometres an hour (932 mph), - 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 metres above the prairie wheat fields.

Joe Kittinger, from Altamonte Springs, Florida, near Orlando, set the record almost 50 years ago, in 1960.



As a U.S. Air Force captain, he leapt from a balloon at 31,000 metres (101,700 feet), about three-quarters of the height Fournier is now shooting for - as a research experiment for the space programme.

