Skydiver breaks sound barrier in record jump
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ROSWELL, N.M. (AP) — In a giant leap from more than 24 miles up, a daredevil skydiver shattered the sound barrier Sunday while making the highest jump ever — a tumbling, death-defying plunge from a balloon to a safe landing in the New Mexico desert.
Felix Baumgartner hit Mach 1.24, or 833.9 mph, according to preliminary data, and became the first man to reach supersonic speed without traveling in a jet or a spacecraft after hopping out of a capsule that had reached an altitude of 128,100 feet above the Earth.
Landing on his feet in the desert, the man known as "Fearless Felix" lifted his arms in victory to the cheers of jubilant onlookers and friends.
"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."
A worldwide audience watched live on the Internet via cameras mounted on his capsule as Baumgartner, wearing a pressurized suit, stood in the doorway of his capsule, gave a thumbs-up and leapt into the stratosphere.
"Sometimes we have to get really high to see how small we are," an exuberant Baumgartner told reporters outside mission control after the jump.
Baumgartner's descent lasted for just over nine minutes, about half of it in a free fall of 119,846 feet, according to Brian Utley, a jump observer from the International Federation of Sports Aviation. He said the speed calculations were preliminary figures.
Baumgartner said traveling faster than sound is "hard to describe because you don't feel it."
With no reference points, "you don't know how fast you travel," he said.
The 43-year-old former Austrian paratrooper with more than 2,500 jumps behind him had taken off early Sunday in a capsule carried by a 55-story ultra-thin helium balloon.
His ascent that was tense at times and included concerns about how well his facial shield was working.
Any contact with the capsule on his exit could have torn his suit, a rip that could expose him to a lack of oxygen and temperatures as low as minus-70 degrees. That could have caused lethal bubbles to form in his bodily fluids.
But none of that happened. He activated his parachute as he neared Earth, gently gliding into the desert east of Roswell and landing without any apparent difficulty. The images triggered another loud cheer from onlookers at mission control, among them his mother, Eva Baumgartner, who was overcome with emotion, crying.
He then was taken by helicopter to meet fellow members of his team, whom he hugged in celebration.
Coincidentally, Baumgartner's feat came on the 65th anniversary of the day that U.S. test pilot Chuck Yeager became the first man to officially break the sound barrier in a jet.
At Baumgartner's insistence, some 30 cameras recorded his stunt Shortly after launch, screens at mission control showed the capsule as it began rising high above the New Mexico desert, with cheers erupting from organizers. Baumgartner could be seen on video, calmly checking instruments inside the capsule.
Baumgartner's team included Joe Kittinger, who first tried to break the sound barrier from 19.5 miles up in 1960, reaching speeds of 614 mph. With Kittinger inside mission control, the two men could be heard going over technical details during the ascension.
"Our guardian angel will take care of you," Kittinger radioed to Baumgartner around the 100,000-foot mark.
An hour into the flight, Baumgartner had ascended more than 63,000 feet and had gone through a trial run of the jump sequence. Ballast was dropped to speed up the ascent.
Kittinger told him, "Everything is in the green. Doing great."
As Baumgartner ascended, so did the number of viewers watching on YouTube. Nearly 7.3 million watched as he sat on the edge of the capsule moments before jumping.
After he landed, his sponsor, Red Bull, posted a picture of Baumgartner on his knees on the ground to Facebook, generating nearly 216,000 likes, 10,000 comments and more than 29,000 shares in less than 40 minutes.
On Twitter, half the worldwide trending topics had something to do with the jump, pushing past seven NFL football games. Among them was this tweet from NASA: "Congratulations to Felix Baumgartner and RedBull Stratos on record-breaking leap from the edge of space!"
This attempt marked the end of a five-year road for Baumgartner, a record-setting high-altitude jumper. He already made two preparation jumps in the area, one from 15 miles high and another from 18 miles high. He has said that this was his final jump.
Baumgartner has said he plans to settle down with his girlfriend and fly helicopters on mountain rescue and firefighting missions in the U.S. and Austria.
Felix Baumgartner hit Mach 1.24, or 833.9 mph, according to preliminary data, and became the first man to reach supersonic speed without traveling in a jet or a spacecraft after hopping out of a capsule that had reached an altitude of 128,100 feet above the Earth.
Landing on his feet in the desert, the man known as "Fearless Felix" lifted his arms in victory to the cheers of jubilant onlookers and friends.
"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."
A worldwide audience watched live on the Internet via cameras mounted on his capsule as Baumgartner, wearing a pressurized suit, stood in the doorway of his capsule, gave a thumbs-up and leapt into the stratosphere.
"Sometimes we have to get really high to see how small we are," an exuberant Baumgartner told reporters outside mission control after the jump.
Baumgartner's descent lasted for just over nine minutes, about half of it in a free fall of 119,846 feet, according to Brian Utley, a jump observer from the International Federation of Sports Aviation. He said the speed calculations were preliminary figures.
Baumgartner said traveling faster than sound is "hard to describe because you don't feel it."
With no reference points, "you don't know how fast you travel," he said.
The 43-year-old former Austrian paratrooper with more than 2,500 jumps behind him had taken off early Sunday in a capsule carried by a 55-story ultra-thin helium balloon.
His ascent that was tense at times and included concerns about how well his facial shield was working.
Any contact with the capsule on his exit could have torn his suit, a rip that could expose him to a lack of oxygen and temperatures as low as minus-70 degrees. That could have caused lethal bubbles to form in his bodily fluids.
But none of that happened. He activated his parachute as he neared Earth, gently gliding into the desert east of Roswell and landing without any apparent difficulty. The images triggered another loud cheer from onlookers at mission control, among them his mother, Eva Baumgartner, who was overcome with emotion, crying.
He then was taken by helicopter to meet fellow members of his team, whom he hugged in celebration.
Coincidentally, Baumgartner's feat came on the 65th anniversary of the day that U.S. test pilot Chuck Yeager became the first man to officially break the sound barrier in a jet.
At Baumgartner's insistence, some 30 cameras recorded his stunt Shortly after launch, screens at mission control showed the capsule as it began rising high above the New Mexico desert, with cheers erupting from organizers. Baumgartner could be seen on video, calmly checking instruments inside the capsule.
Baumgartner's team included Joe Kittinger, who first tried to break the sound barrier from 19.5 miles up in 1960, reaching speeds of 614 mph. With Kittinger inside mission control, the two men could be heard going over technical details during the ascension.
"Our guardian angel will take care of you," Kittinger radioed to Baumgartner around the 100,000-foot mark.
An hour into the flight, Baumgartner had ascended more than 63,000 feet and had gone through a trial run of the jump sequence. Ballast was dropped to speed up the ascent.
Kittinger told him, "Everything is in the green. Doing great."
As Baumgartner ascended, so did the number of viewers watching on YouTube. Nearly 7.3 million watched as he sat on the edge of the capsule moments before jumping.
After he landed, his sponsor, Red Bull, posted a picture of Baumgartner on his knees on the ground to Facebook, generating nearly 216,000 likes, 10,000 comments and more than 29,000 shares in less than 40 minutes.
On Twitter, half the worldwide trending topics had something to do with the jump, pushing past seven NFL football games. Among them was this tweet from NASA: "Congratulations to Felix Baumgartner and RedBull Stratos on record-breaking leap from the edge of space!"
This attempt marked the end of a five-year road for Baumgartner, a record-setting high-altitude jumper. He already made two preparation jumps in the area, one from 15 miles high and another from 18 miles high. He has said that this was his final jump.
Baumgartner has said he plans to settle down with his girlfriend and fly helicopters on mountain rescue and firefighting missions in the U.S. and Austria.
This is yet another example of how our society rewards rich people, I wish everyone would laud me for simply falling
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I turned on the laptop and saw the raw video feed (I think that's what you call it) of this event. It's been years since I have said any curse words and I really don't enjoy being around a person like that. That being said, when I saw this man jump out of that bubble and free fall to earth, the only word that came out of my mouth was with the letter "F" with holy in front of it. My dog suzie put her head down and went into the other room. I was completely awe struck.
If given the opportunity, I would do this in a New York minute. I have no idea how one's perception would change when feasting your own eyes on the curve of the earth from near-outer-space.
The idea he broke the sound barrier is totally false. The speed of sound varies with air density where he was falling at 700 mph the speed of sound was probably 2000mph. In other words, his body never created a sonic boom. More poor science reporting by barely literate high school GED reporters.
@dynamited77 There was no mention of what altitude or air density it was when he actually reached his 833 MPH, so your statement of this being poor science is equally poor and even moreso in the fact that you are making an assumption on something you are stating is already an assumption. You should just let them have their moment instead of raining on their parade. This is an amazing thing no matter how you cut it, a man....sky-dived....from 128,100 feet. There is nothing false about his jump, and frankly i would be more inclined to believe people that have the technical experiance that comes with having worked with NASA, than to a random poster on a news website.
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Congrats to this team of divers!
Cool? Yes, but watching a balloon go up for over 2 hours reminded me of watching paint dry. What was horribly frustrating was CNN cut away right when he jumped.
WAtching his wife hold her breath and then the tears of happiness for her husband was amazing!
This is a cool and awesome achievement, but what happens to the capsule?
@Obongo Geddon  The capsule returned to Earth when they cut away from the ballon and it parachuted back down. According to the broadcast, it is still a bumpy landing and there were crush zones built into the bottom of the capsule to absorb some impact. There were instruments that captured data that they wanted to analyze that was not sent via radio. Not sure what will eventually happen to it (Smithsonian perhaps?).
While this was an incredible feat, I must agree with Icarus. The communication and information provided to Felix was amateur at best. No wonder he asked them to put out smoke flare.
 @GleekerÂ
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Yes, and Icarus would know about flying high and falling fast. ;-)
Cool! Next time, though, he should do it in a swimsuit! ;-)
Pretty amazing..... that guy is nukin futs.
Felix, the wind is coming from the ridge. Felix, the wind is coming from the ridge. Felix, HEY, pay attention! THE WIND IS COMING FROM THE > NO WAIT A MINUTE, THE WIND GOING TOWARDS THE RIDGE, the wind is going towards the ridge. Over and out!
 @swimbadÂ
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Amateurs! I saw the same thing and thought; "amateurs". There was lots of talk about how much they planned and the called their base "mission control" and designed it to look like NASA Mission Control but there were clearly many cracks in the plaster. It makes me believe that the whole commercial space industry thing is poorly thought out; I certainly wouldn't go for a ride particularly when corporations are left to their own devices to determine allowable level of risk and establish appropriate costly safety procedures which would clearly cut into profits. The first accident that results in a client death will end the industry because the tax payers will not pay for administrative oversight for an industry caters to the fantasies of the elite one percent.
 @Icarus  @swimbad Yeah, I wouldn't trust private industry to make airplanes, either. . . oh, wait . . .
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So 3 records have been Broken?
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WOW, That was awe some, I used my screen recorder to record some of the highlights, I WILL NOT BE POSTING lol.It will be for my personal Archive :)
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It was scary to watch, especially the spin he went into near the beginning of the jump. I can't imagine what would cause a person to think jumping from that high is a good idea, but I'm glad he survived.
Well that was kinda cool; I still won't drink that Red Bull stuff.
 @Icarus With vodka it's pretty good.
Godspeed!
Reading this article is like talking to my wife. Do they really have to list Chuck Yeager twice in the article? Even with ADD I can still read and comprehend without having to have it summarized again.
 @Jamie Did you know they even mentioned Chuck Yeager in this article? It's true! I know you have ADD, but go back and look!!
;)