Ya know that feeling when you’re standing on the end of the high dive looking down at that little rectangle of blue water, your knees shaking, but you know you have to jump… wimping out is not an option? This guy didn’t feel that. BECAUSE HE WAS LOOKING DOWN OVER THE EARTH! He had to be shitting his pants! MY palms were sweating beads just reading this story. They are sweating again just linking this article to my blog. Thanks Nicholas Mott of National Geographic for this story… even if it makes me want to throw up! And it does kinda make me laugh that he landed in Roswell, NM… just saying!
“Space Dive” Success: Baumgartner Breaks Skydive Record, Sound Barrier
From 24 miles over Roswell, sky diver fell farther, faster than any other.
Pilot Felix Baumgartner exults after landing on his feet in Roswell, New Mexico, Sunday.
Photograph courtesy Balazs Gardi, Red Bull Content Pool
Nicholas Mott
Updated 5:02 p.m. ET, October 14, 2012
“I’m coming home,” Felix Baumgartner radioed Sunday just before stepping off his 24-mile-high (39-kilometer-high) balloon capsule and into the history books.
He wasted no time getting there: In the process of logging the highest ever jump, Baumgartner reached unprecedented speeds of 833.9 miles (1,342 kilometers) an hour while free-falling in a pressurized suit, according to preliminary data.
Video: Watch Highlights of the Skydive That Broke the Sound Barrier
Though he appeared no worse for the wear during a post-jump press conference, Baumgartner had, officials announced, broken the sound barrierduring the free fall, reaching Mach 1.24. Asked what it was like to go supersonic, he said, “It’s hard to describe, because I didn’t feel it. You know, when you’re in that pressure suit, you don’t feel anything. It’s like being in a cast.”
After several postponements, the so-called Red Bull Stratos Mission to the Edge of Space had begun shortly after 2 p.m. ET, when he opened his capsule high above Roswell (map), New Mexico.
“Be sure to duck your head real low as you go out the door,” warned retired U.S. Air Force pilot Joseph Kittinger, who set the previous height record in 1960—19.5 miles (31.3 kilometers)—and was the only Red Bull Stratos team member with a direct radio link to Baumgartner. (See classic pictures of Kittinger’s skydive.)
Soon after, Baumgartner dived from beneath history’s largest helium balloon—55 stories tall and as wide as a football field.
After a 4-minute, 22-second free fall—not the longest duration on record, as he’d hoped (that record-breaking speed may have had something to do with it)—the Austrian sky diver opened his parachute at about 5,000 feet (1,524 meters).
“Couldn’t have done it any better myself,” Kittinger said over the radio, and to the millions who watched the live Internet feed of Baumgartner’s skydive.
Baumgartner safely touched down at 2:17 p.m. ET after roughly ten minutes total in the air—the picture perfect desert landing punctuated by an apparently elated Baumgartner falling to his knees before being whisked away by a recovery helicopter.
