Austrian skydiver and base jumper, Felix Baumgartner on Sunday became the only man to break the speed of sound with an estimated speed of 833.9mph or Mach 1.24 while he also set the record of a highest jump record from an altitude of 128,100 feet.
Seven million viewers anxiously and in awe watched live the daredevil mission from the start when the 55-story helium balloon took off from the New Mexican desert Sunday at 11:31 am carrying Baumgartner's capsule. After two and a half hours ride the 43-year-old Austrian skydiver and his 84-year-old former pilot Joe Kittinger has reached the edge of space to make history, with the green signal given by Kittinger, Baumgartner made his record shattering free fall.
Baumgartner's descent lasted just over nine minutes, about half of it in a free fall of 119,846 feet, It's hard to imagine being in freefall of 119,846 feet over a period of 4 minutes and 20 seconds at 833 miles an hour with only his pressurized suit to protect him from the frigid, oxygen-deprived air around him. Baumgartner was plummeting so fast he appeared just a tiny white speck on the infrared camera tracking him.
During the first part of Baumgartner's free fall, anxious onlookers at the command centre held their breath as he appeared to spin uncontrollably for about 35 seconds. Baumgartner finally managed to regain control, and deploy his parachute as he neared Earth gently landing into the desert about 64 kilometres east of Roswell.
After the successful landing Red Bull Stunt Man Felix Baumgartner has described his jump "hard to describe because you don't feel it." With no reference points, "you don't know how fast you travel," but on a more metaphoric note, he said, it is "like swimming without touching the water."
"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. "The only thing you want is to come back alive." "Sometimes we have to get really high to see how small we are," an exuberant Baumgartner told reporters outside mission control after his successful mission.
Although he broke the sound barrier, the highest manned-balloon flight record and became the man to jump from the highest altitude, he failed to break Kittinger's 5 minute and 35 second longest free fall record in 1960.Baumgartner's was timed at 4 minutes and 20 seconds in free fall.
Baumgartner said he didn't only do the stunt to set a record. He also did it for science, as the jump could help NASA design better and stronger spacesuits for astronauts.
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