David Rosenthal: evaluation

Transcript context

…We were like, all right, as long as we clear 65,000, we should be higher than their radar could even detect and certainly higher than their fighters could come get us. Right. The CIA's spec for Skunk Works for the U-2 is to fly at 70,000 feet. Now, there are a couple of problems with that. One is that normal jet fuel doesn't work at that altitude. At that altitude, the pressure, the temperature, everything about the environment, you're getting to be closer to space than you are to normal earth's atmosphere, and things start going wrong. That one, they actually subcontract with Shell Oil to make a new formulation of jet fuel that does work up there, so that problem is solved. Problem number two is maybe a little bigger, and that is that humans cannot survive at that altitude. Certainly, you need a pressurized cabin. But if something were to happen, and you needed to be out of the cabin, cold, no air, blah-blah-blah.…

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