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Felix Baumgartner sets new records by successfully skydiving from 24 miles high
Felix Baumgartner stepped out of the space capsule an astonishing 24 miles above earth, or about three times the cruising altitude of jetliners. The skydiver plummeted for 4:22 seconds, but it seemed an eternity, because his face plate was fogging up on the way down as he fell through harsh atmospheric conditions at dizzying speed.
At 48 seconds into his jump he reached a speed upwards of 729 mph. That's the new record for the highest speed ever reached by a skydiver, but it's still unclear whether he officially broke the sound barrier.
He also broke the record for the highest manned balloon flight, reaching, unofficially, a height just shy of 25 miles.
Baumgartner's long-anticipated leap Sunday, from the edge of space at an altitude of 128,000 feet, earned the Austrian daredevil several records, most notably the highest successful jump and for becoming the only skydiver to
have broken the sound barrier.
The sound barrier record he set comes 65 years to the day after Chuck Yeager, flying in his X-1A, first broke the barrier.
"I wish the world could see what I see right now," Baumgartner said as he stepped onto the jump platform.
The Red Bull Stratos project had been seven years in the making. Baumgartner, 43, made the leap while wearing a pressurized space suit. He jumped from a pressurized capsule that was hoisted toward the heavens above Roswell, New Mexico, by a towering white stratospheric balloon.
