Can Master Chief Survive Falling from Space? 

Thanks for watching! This one was a lot of fun. Also, go back and watch the original "Starry Night" trailer for Halo 3. Best game teaser ever. Change my mind. See you in Footnotes! -- KH

For a brick, he flew pretty good.

"After falling for 7000 kilometers" he woke up and yelled "I HAVE BEEN FALLING FOR *THIRTY MINUTES*!"

In Mother Russia pilot saves parachute from fall.

"Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?" "Well, I hit a tree."

Can survive a fall from space, yet dies when falls into 3ft of water........ because science!

An episode about Halo, sponsored by Tomb Raider. *eXuSE mE wHAt tHE f**K*

Everyone always forgets that he has Armor Lock, completely locking his joints from being snapped or anything. It'd be like dropping a brick from 10 stories and it not shattering when it hits the ground

Hey there Kyle! Some additives for you: Master Chief has a Kinetic Energy Shield that absorbs kinetic and energy impacts, meaning he has additional surviving power there. He was riding a chunk of heat shielding down, as you stated, which according to sources from the Halo 3 team, he rode down until initial impact, which sent him bouncing into the trees when he hit a hill-top, so his velocity would have been reduced by small impacts from branches AND one bounce off a hill-top. Finally, he hit mud, which adds a little softness to the impact. Lucky seriously evolved

"They let me pick, did I ever tell you that? Choose whichever Spartan I wanted. You know me. I did my research, watched as you became the soldier we needed you to be. Like the others, you were strong and swift and brave. A natural leader. But you had something they didn't. Something no one saw... but me. Can you guess? Luck. Was I wrong?" - Cortana

so if you fall off the map you die, but if you fall from space you live... HUH

Also one of the most notable things about MC and one of the important reasons Cortana chose him over other spartans, was his luck. In Cortana's own words, "You know they let me choose any spartan I wanted, I chose you cause you had something the others didn't, Luck".

gets sponsored by tomb raider game. talks about Halo

I’ve seen a few comments saying that chief didn’t fall for long enough to reach terminal velocity. So I have a simple correction correction; he started his fall GOING FASTER THAN HIS OWN TERMINAL VELOCITY. He would have actually slowed down while falling.

Hey Kyle, don't know if you'll see this or not, but I just wanted to say thank you. I found Because Science about a month ago and I've been watching since. I've always loved science, but you and your team really reignited that love. I feel the same way watching your stuff that I did when I was a kid watching Bill Nye. Thank you and your whole team so much for the content you guys create, because it's not only affected me personally quite a lot, but I just know you're getting young kids who really need it involved and excited about science as well. In 20 years, we're really gonna be hearing from all kinds of scientists about how they first found their love for science because of this show. You guys rock!

Master Chief: “Dont worry, the ground broke my fall.”

Another thing to consider is that the augmentations for the Spartan IIs was more than just genetic, it included invasive physical enhancements as well. In the Fall of Reach, they are discussed in detail, but at the end, a Spartan II is undoubtedly the toughest of the series. Later classes of Spartans (IIIs and IVs) were spared this, since the survival rate for the augmentations was horrific. As a result, the Spartan IIIs and IVs would probably die in extreme situations that a II may be able to survive. Of all the Spartans, IIIs definitely had it the worst. Their lower quality, (chemical and genetic only) augmentations, with inferior gear, made most of them barely qualify as a Spartan when compared to an original II. Noble team was an exception in that they were given MK V armor, but they were still less effective than Blue team would have been under the same conditions. halo.wikia.com/wiki/SPARTAN-II_augmentation_procedures

Hello there. I think you miss a detail in your numbers. Master Chief has an energy shield that absorbs kinetic energy from bullets so it must take also energy from a full body slam into the ground. In game it takes around 4 rounds at gun point of the battle rifle that has a 9.5x40mm .375 caliber rounds to deplete completely a shield. So taking the mass of a similar caliber bullet and taking on account that this are futuristic rifles that likely fire like our best rifles we can do the math: 4 rounds x 3 bullets = 12 bullets .75m to end of the barrel muzzle speed = 1000 m/s for high end rifles bullet weight = 5g F = KE/d KE = (1/2)(mv^2) F = [(1/2)(0.005kg)(1000m/s)^2]/0.75m F = 3333 N 3333 N x 12bullets = 40000 N = 40 KN So a energy shield in the best case scenario can absorb 40KN Actually I found bullets from the size with weight over 15g so there could be an even greater number. (I'm probably on some watchlist right know)

I feel like there was a big missed opportunity for a, "Surprise energy sword!!"

Can I ask why Thor’s hammer has ammo

7000km, dang that's a long time unconcious

Gotta love the picture of Mjolnir in the top right - Mjolnir Armour... well played... well played

The real question is how did Kyle survive a sticky grenade with only a downed shield? he must have tweaked the custom game settings to allow multiple layers of over-shield or changed the damage modifiers.

"you shouldnt survive it" HOW ABOUT I DO IT ANYWAAAAAAAAAAAAYS

I think the energy shield and the hydrostatic gel layer would help soften the impact.

I know Thor and Mjolnir have been done to death on here, but what would happen if Thor's hammer was floating in space and someone unworthy tried to grab it? Would the enchantment kick in and immediately pull them to the nearest source of gravity, or would they be able to wield it?

One of the things, you briefly mentioned, is the gel layer. Currently, there is a countermovement gel being tested for use in trauma cases... To keep excess movement and shock to a minimum.

There is something I found from my research of the Master Chief's armour. He doesn't change his armour from Halo 2 and he has a MJOLNIR Mark VI instead of a Mark IV. The Mark VI has thrusters which he could have used to further slow himself down. Judging by the footage on RU-vid, the thrusters can help jump a Spartan sized obstacle in about 0.167 seconds So if that is the case, it would give him a possible thrust speed of 12m/s or 43.2km/h. If he has 30s to impact (if 66m/s =1s 2000=29.9s), that would give him a possible burn time of 15s (5 to react and plan, 10 to position himself for impact and 15 to burn the hell out of his thrusters). I don't know how to calculate his final speed but I believe the amount of energy discharged by the thrusters and the impact would probably be the reason why it took him a while to come back. That is my hypothesis.

You know in Halo Reach Noble 6 did fall from space on to a planet in a older version of the armor Master Chief wears in Halo 3

Sooooooo, Master Chief is a badass...kinda already knew that..., but now it's been proven with SCIENCE!!

According to the radar on the HUD around 5:14- whomever is behind the camera sees Kyle as an enemy..... LOOK OUT KYLE! That is, unless the HUD is Kyle's, cause in that case, LOOK OUT CAMERA DUDE!

You know the armor locked up to help with the fall right, it's a direct quote from the cutscene

He also had that giant light-yet-strong Forerunner metal plate which i'm pretty sure helped him a lot with the air drag.

Further adding to this, I actually have some insight. In the book "Fall of Reach" written by Eric Nylund, he explains not only the fall of reach but also what the Spartan II program entailed. First off, the entire reason they're named "Spartans" is because they are basically kidnapped and replaced with clones at around 6 or 7, using genetic markers and observations made by Dr. Halsey. They're then trained, RIGOROUSLY, until they're 14, wherein they undergo surgeries that increase bone and muscle density, eye sight, epidermal elasticity, muscle and bone mass, and... a few things in their brain before they are trained some more. Even before we talk about the MJOLNIR armor, the Spartans themselves would have greater chances of falling from that height than a normal human, anyway. Now, we add the armor. First of all, the armor is near bulletproof. It uses a (obviously non-existent) version of ceramic that deflects bullets, the weave underneath is another composite material that's pretty much cut and tear proof, and the internal systems themselves allow the soldier inside to alter the atmospheric conditions within the suit itself. They could survive underwater for significant periods of time, and the suit could even sustain them in the vacuum and cosmic radiation of space for short periods of time. That gel layer inside the suit acted as an air conditioning system, as well as a shock absorber, which the suit used as back ups for situations exactly like this. In that same book I mentioned earlier, we see the first meeting with the covenant. They destroy the first ship by having 3 Spartans FIRED OUT OF THE SHIPS WEAPON SYSTEM ONTO THE COVENANT SHIP'S HULL. Then we have to talk about the chief, in the armor, being sucked out of an airlock with a multiton bomb the covenant had placed on board. Can the master chief survive a fall from space? Yes.

nice self correction kyle about the "7 km" thing you got it this time

HA! Turned around that lame "discount Thor" joke, well played. Also, loved 7:07 how he couldn't resist but made it subtle enough to make it work. Nice.

You know who fell from space legit in Halo? Noble 6. Now THAT is a video I'd like to see. A Spartan III lightly tossed toward a planet makes planetfall and walks away... I dunno about that, man.

Kyle was recording with the Catch skull on, i see

I actually had a great uncle that survived a malfunctioning parachute jumping behind enemy lines at D-Day. And you're absolutely right, trees and the snow definitely saved him. Granted snow saved him from a lot of thing while he was over there (mines with wet/bad powder and morter shells too.) Love the channel! I hope Senpai will notice me lol!

I’ve always loved the References you have in every video, it’s funny, well used and appreciated as a fan of most of the topics you cover. If this isn’t a good enough reason to subscribe idk what is, Keep it up!

Kyle, i love how you talk about the luck you need to survive such things. John's luck mentioned a few times in the books about the series.

*_I mean, we can always find out._*

Master Chief being a Master Bad-Ass as always. And knowing how tough and enhanced he is, the next question(s) to answer: Just how strong would Master Chief be to effortlessly flip over a Scorpion Tank as we do in the games. And how much force would he need to exert to be able to flip and toss a warthog a few feet off the ground as he does when you flip one back on to its wheels.

i love your content! your videos encouraged me to be hungry for knowledge. keep up the great work!

Excellent Episode, i hope we see some more Halo ones soon. Some things to consider... 1) Mjolnir armor is equipped standard with a Gel Layer that can harden to keep the body rigid to reduce bouncing around (this is seen in the book Halo fall of reach when a detatchment of spartans have to Halo Jump from a destroyed pelican) Thanks for the Episode and all the awesome content.

So did that guy just guess what happens when you drop things down a shaft, or did he actually throw creatures down for shits and giggles

Hey, Kyle! Love the video. I was itching throughout the video because, for some reason, I thought you were going to leave out specifically the crystalline-infused gel layer SPECIFICALLY meant to aid in the absorbtion of impacts. Why I ever doubted the research capabilities of you and your Kyletana AI out there in the Void, I will never now. One thing that would also favorably add towards your final conclusion is that the jungle floor would very likely have a decent layer of loam, liquid(as seen having collected in his Chief-sized crater), and other debris, upwards of a couple feet in some places. This conglomeration of decomposing biomass and forest floor clutter would act as sort of an analog to the snow in your other examples of lucky survivors. What I would be interested in is the math, probably similar to this one, behind the Fall of Reach novel, where dozens of armoured Spartan II's leaped from an already rapidly descending Pelican dropship, minus parachute, and a.... a good deal of them.... hobbled away. As I do not have my source material, I would be unable to tell you exact numbers, but I would like to see if you can provide a maximum velocity upon which a Spartan II could survive a fall into a tree trunk, as seen the novel. Thor is a Discount Kyle, your good fan, Jared.

It's really cool that you mentioned "luck." In that cutscene where Chief falls from "space," Cortana is narrating she says that luck is Chief's special ability.

The takeaway from this episode: since humans have survived falls at terminal velocity, anyone super-human has a pretty decent chance as long as they have any conditions in their favor (depending on how super-human they are)

Chief lands on a massive angle, dunno how, but in the game you see his crater, and it's an oval-like shape, meaning his stopping time would be significantly increased. The speed he's going might not make this a problem, but I believe that his stopping time is much higher than you've said.

5:00 I understood that Mjolnir reference 😆😆😆

Bro. I just started watching your videos in the past couple months. You are extremely intelligent. I hope to be as knowledgeable as you one day.

Won't the suit's stasis lock help as well? Keeping the limbs from snapping at some joints.

One minor error I noticed rather early, Kyle. You said with his armour the Chief weighs about 941 (if I did the math right) pounds. But Mjolnir Mk. VI (the variant he wears in Halo 2 and Halo 3) weighs 1,000 pounds when nobody is inside it. With the Chief inside it the total weight comes out to around 1,290 pounds as he is about 290 pounds with nothing on. Terminal velocity for a normal human who is less than 200 pounds is around 195 kilometres per hour Wouldn't the extra 349 pounds make his terminal velocity a bit faster?

7:08 "69ms.. Nice" Freaking too funny. You have such great line delivery sir, good job.

His armor doesn't just "have" a gel layer, the layer can, on command, be pressurized and flooded to increase it's size and density for just this kind of situation, further increasing the time it would take for his body to hit the ground.

If you look closely in the video you can see that he starts falling and suddenly changes his direction which means that he could have some sort of active aerodynamics that allow him to control his direction which will also allow him to come down at an angle which is something you could see in the video so he didn't exactly hit the ground directly but he skipped it like a stone in water plus all the protection and the trees that means that he had a pretty high chance of surviving. Just my opinion.

Kyle, you really need to do an episode on something from The Expanse. Whether it's the protomolecule, or the Mars marine suits or the area inside the Ring from Season 3.

Adding onto this Jerome092 jumped from the enduring conviction(in older armor) which was actually in space and survived to help in the next mission.

As a huge halo fan, and always bugged by the 2km fall, but if I jump off a ledge i die thing. Loved the video, and all the extra aminations of halo hud.

To be fair, terminal velocity is also impacted by his orientation and application of other physics (typically drag), which he would be smart enough to use (especially with Cortana's help). The most obvious example is a skydiver with chute in pack vs. deployed. Same mass, very different velocites, and even then changing orientation can change velocity while using a chute. He didn't have a chute, but he did use an improvised shield, which would increase drag (and mass, temporarily, to be fair). Barring that, he could spread out flat like you see most skydivers do, to control descent velocity. 49m/s (~110mph, I think) is the safe freefall in this case (so glad you used that), but experienced skydivers can control their descent drastically. I found a range of 49-143 m/s, record being 321mph last I checked... holy *&^@!

Hey Kyle ! Great episode ! I just wanted to point something out. In the intro video where the chief is shown soaring down from the space shuttle, both the shuttle and Chief are red hot glowing. In your estimates you declare it would take him 15 seconds to reach the terminal velocity, but that would be if he was to just jump out of the shuttle. I think what is actually going on is that Chief is waaaaay past his terminal velocity and he is rather deccelerating at a rapid pace (perhaps he was shot out of the shuttle). Objects in our atmosphere reach their term v so they do not cause enough of air pressure to cause the combustion effect thing. All in all, I think your numbers might be incorrect, but it that case it would be very difficult to get any estimates because we don't really know what height he was ejected at, nor his spees at that moment. Anyway, I hope You see this, keep up the fabulous work !

I greatly enjoy your videos. Keep up the great work!

My goodness. I laughed so hard at that quote and delivery. Thanks for the guffaw : P

The guy that found him said he fell with a heat shield so if he means like one on a rocket and if it was heavy enough that it would make a fire ball and he could of buffed up his chances of surviving But I never played halo so heat shield could be something else

if you look at the video, chief hits at a shallow angle. if you throw a stone across water at a shallow enough angle it skips. if chief hits at a shallow enough angle, he too could skip, slowing him down more gradually, and the final hit/landing would leave a chief sized creator.

I have never read the novels myself however from what i have understood he hit several objects through his decent, also the shield was rumored to have kinetic dampening properties. Love the show, big fan!

Glad you brought up the gel layer, jungle, brush and mud. I was waiting just to make that point. But I will bring this up. He doesn't necessarily have to walk away scott free. The biofoam we see in ODST, for example, is built right into the MK VI armor. And there's other failsafes like it. So, he could be badly beaten, but his armor itself would keep him moving (something made cheaper in the Spartan IIIs, who received animal hormones instead of human growth hormone so they'd fight without having the armor keep them going, per Ghosts of Onyx).

Take a drink every time Kyle says "heat"

I've always wanted to know: If you fall at terminal velocity, and hit a slope, which you roll down parkour-style, how steep would the slope have to be?

well the heat shield would have altered his terminal velocity and most likely increased his drag as a large flat surface in front of him like a door he may have smashed through.Also Chief isnt in the centre of his crater and the heat shield isnt in sight meaning he could have skipped along the ground increasing the time it took to slow down even more ,this is supported by the cutscene at the start of the game where he flies (falls with style) by the camera at a very horizontal angle , love the show and keep up the great work

Also in the Master Chief’s case, his survival was thanks to a safety mechanism built into the armor; it’s mentioned that the entire suit locked, requiring a marine to unlock it, and there’s also damage to the gel layer if I remember right

Of course he can survive! Felix Baumgartner survived his 39 km drop with a far less technologically advanced suit!

How soon can we get our own Kyle-tana?

This video reminds me of a clip I saw - there was a guy jumping off a high dive into a tiny plastic swimming pool.

He has impact gel in his armour, as well as he hit multiple branches that are shown on the ground in the cut scene when he is found

His armor blocks, the impact does not connect to damage internal organs. (Sorry for bad english)

What would happen if lightning struck a tokamak, a la Obi Wan Kenobi's lightsaber and Count Dooku's force lightning in Episode II? Assuming Dooku's force strike was relatively close to the equivalent of the average bolt of lightning at around a billion joules, would the plasma just absorb the energy like the lightsaber did or should we have seen a more explosive reaction? It should be noted that Dooku's lightning dispersed from his hands in a continuous stream for a few seconds, rather than the nearly instantaneous average lightning strike.

Kyle-tana!🤣🤣🤣 This is the best video yet, I love it

How would a soldier be able to hold a plasma grenade without melting the muscles from his bone?

Hey Kyle, I just thought about Infinity War and ended with the following: If 50% of all people would randomly die, this would mean, 25% of all planes would be out of pilots. If every plane was carrying 400 people, it than would be carrying 200. If I calculate this, with the number of pilots in germany divide it with the whole population of germany, this would give a chance of 0,00625 % of another pilot being on board. This times the 200 people still alive would mean, there is a 1,25 % chance of the plane being saved. So about 23,75 % of all planes would crash. If we take 10000 planes in the air, all carrying about 200 people, this gives us at least 475000 more dead people. Probably a lot of the planes would crash in city's, what would give even more dead humans. Also 50% of all cars would be out of driver, which would cause the biggest car crashes in history. This would also kill a lot of people, especially in the city's. I would say at least 35% of all people in the citys. If a little less than 50% live in city's, this would give us about 17% of the people still alive. If we also have in mind, that people would suddenly be out of a doctor while being operated and so on, Thanos would minimum have killed 60% of all people and most of the others would probably suffer from PTSD or something alike. And I guess it would be quite alike on other planets. So even though Thanos claims, that he is doing good things, his plan would be worse than thought. This brings up the question, why didn't he increase the number of resources while at the same time decreasing all species reproduction, greed and maybe even need for resources? I know the real live answer is that it would make the movie boring, but actually, as cool as the concept is, I found Infinity War boring most of the time. Greetings from Germany, Hendrik.

You should absolutely do another Overwatch episode (I'm not biased). There's so many crazy things in that universe that I want to see analyzed! Lucio's crazy sonic amplifier, Symmetra's massive photon light barrier, Reinhardt's insane rocket powered hammer and armor, Wrecking Ball who is just a huge intelligent hamster in a mech ball, and so much more! Personally, I'd love to see one on Doomfist and how he can launch himself at people, or even how his weird shotgun energy pellet hand works. I think anything from that game could make for a wonderful episode and you should look into it. Love the show, and I can't wait for next week's episode :)

Also in the book Fall Of Reach there is a scene where 40+ Spartans do this kind of a jump and most survive (I want to say 3/4) by over presurizing the gel layer in their suit and landing in trees to help break their fall. This was in an earlier set of armor with a weaker shield system so I can 100% see him surviving this fall with the math you provided. Thanks for the video!

Well he did, so yeah.. twice!

Basically game theory except with more science. I love this channel

Hi Kyle, awesome videos I love watching Because Science. I was curious about a few other scenarios though. What about in Halo Reach when Noble 6 falls from space? Jorge actually throws him out of the covenant corvette and he falls into atmosphere and crash lands. With just a limp. Or how about in halo 4. Another from atmosphere fall but this time Master chief appears to have a hunk of metal to absorb the heat from entering the atmosphere. Would either of these scenarios change your answer in any way since they are from space rather then high in the atmosphere?

don't forget MJOLNIR armor has a lockdown function for impacts like this. it's intended to keep the wearer safe from impact forces and being jarred around. the same function is seen in Halo Reach when your falcon goes down curing Tip of The Spear. Chief's armor engaged that function so that only added to the myriad of factors that lessened his impact

Of course, he's the man character in a videogame!

Can you talk about how slip space works from halo

I just love how Kyle makes it so anyone in school in the entire US cant get into footnotes except on summer

Hey Kyle, huge fan, I’ve been binge watching all your old episodes and I have a questions about what you said about dragons. I understand that they would need massive wing spans and shoulder/wing mussels in order to get off the ground, so my question is could they use there ability to breath fire (which is another problem entirely) to create massive updrafts is air to help them fly? Again huge fan and thank your for raising the IQs of us here our side the void

Now what about Noble Six, who actually fell from space?

Why did the gremlins duplicate from the pool water and not from the beer?

You for got about the covenant or forerunner piece of metal he used as a heat shield. When you get control of him you see a decent gap between weir he landed and the actual heat shield

Noble 6 Survived a fall from a Covenant Corvette that was over reach and he was in space and there Augmented humans and there armors are designed to take a beating and have a gel layer that can lock up to protect the wearer. Titanium is also Grafted to his bones to help make them more unbreakable like many Spartans.

Kyle, I am a huge fan of Because Science, but I love Halo even more. Choose your words carefully. LOL

Hey Kyle, 2 things of not that serious importance 1) When referring to John, you said " Soldier John 117" when you should have said "Spartan 117" as it just misclasses him. 2) When you had the HUD from Halo up on the screen, I noticed you had Thor's hammer as your active weapon. You used ammo ticks instead of an "Energy remaining" bar. That is all. Stay nerdy my friend

he also landed close to what looks like a water fall meaning the soil where he landed would have been moist and have more give then dry soil. if you look at the video he also has a pool of water at his feet where he landed showing the soil was soft

Let's not forget small details like how Chief's bones are coated in a hybrid titanium ceramic, his muscular structure was augmented to be strong and absorbent like kevlar, the suit has robotics wired directly to his nervous system, so if a bone is broken the suit can support the limb a la exos for disabled peoples, the suit also has an automated biofoam system wired up to the biosensor layer to seal any wounds that occur throughout a battle (or a hard landing), and finally, kinetic energy shielding, ruyman90 has a good explanation of its effectiveness.

Sponsored by tomb raider *makes halo video*