Felix Baumgartner reacts after his mission was aborted in Roswell, N.M., on Tuesday.(Photo: Joerg Mitter, Red Bull Stratos)
Over the weekend, the world watched as Felix Baumgartner made a record-breaking jump from the edge of space, and when you're free falling faster than the speed of sound, you'd better have a good parachute to lean on. That's where a Tennessee business came into play.
George Galloway and his team in the town of Dunlap, north of Chattanooga, designed the chute.
From choice of fabric, to support tapes and suspension systems, he says a lot of factors came into play designing for this mission.
"To enhance performance, you have to give up some reliability, so you have to figure out where you want the performance to land the winds of the New Mexico desert, but at the same time, you've got to have reliability," said Galloway.
Precision Aerodynamics has made around 60,000 parachutes in its near 30 years operating in Dunlap.
Galloway says he's glad his team could bring some hometown pride.