Felix Baumgartner, the daredevil skydiver, successfully jumped from the edge of space, breaking the sound barrier and several records. The event, held by Red Bull Stratos, was broadcasted live on a YouTube video for millions to watch.
Baumgartner, 43, made history when he jumped from over 24 miles on Sunday. He was lifted in a capsule by a stratospheric balloon to over 128,000 feet in a trip that took over two hours. Baumgartner's original goal was to jump from 120,000 feet, but he traveled further than planned as he tried to work out an issue with his helmet.
After the problem was addressed, mission control went through a checklist with Baumgartner and he was set to make his epic jump. At 128,100 feet, he leapt out of the capsule.
Baumgartner was going so fast that he broke the sound barrier, becoming to first human to ever do so without an aircraft. He reached Mach 1.24 and went as fast as 833.9 miles per hour as he fell through the sky.
After freefalling for four minutes and 22 seconds, Baumgartner opened his parachute and safely glided back to the New Mexico desert in Roswell. Upon landing, he lifted his arms up in victory as viewers cheered.
"When I was standing there on top of the world, you become so humble, you do not think about breaking records anymore, you do not think about gaining scientific data," he said after the jump, according to CBS. "The only thing you want is to come back alive."
As temperatures fell below zero as Baumgartner approached space, he was required to wear a special pressure suit that contained oxygen and could withstand the freezing temperatures. If his suit was damaged as he broke the sound barrier, the outcome could have been deadly, but he had few issues during the free-fall.
The leap was a bit terrifying at one point as Baumgartner began to spin out of control during the free-fall.
"In that situation, when you spin around, it's like hell and you don't know if you can get out of that spin or not," Baumgartner said, as quoted by the Daily Mail.
"The exit was perfect but then I started spinning slowly. I thought I'd just spin a few times and that would be that, but then I started to speed up," he continued. "It was really brutal at times. I thought for a few seconds that I'd lose consciousness."
Baumgartner was eventually able to straighten himself out and control the fall.
Baumgartner broke several records with his fall, but there was one that is still held by his predecessor and mentor, Joe Kittinger. The 84-year-old U.S. Air Force colonel attempted the jump in 1960. He jumped from 102,800 feet, which was less than Baumgartner, but he spent more time in free-fall than Baumgartner did.
Kittinger helped guide Baumgartner through the process. Upon successful completion, Kittinger congratulated Baumgartner, saying "Couldn't have done it better myself."
Baumgartner is clearly not a rookie skydiver. He has over 2,500 jumps on his belt. He also holds a record for the lowest BASE jump as he jumped from Rio de Janeiro's famous Christ the Redeemer statue. He also set world records for the highest BASE jump from a building. He jumped from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur and the Taipei 101 Tower, some of the tallest buildings in the world.
Here is a complete video of Baumgartner's jump:
Here is the jump from Baumgartner's helmet camera:
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
