An Austrian adventurer made skydiving history high over the New Mexico desert. A helium balloon carried Felix Baumgartner's capsule nearly 24 miles to the edge of space above New Mexico's desert. The 43-year-old Austrian skydiver then jumped from an altitude of 128,000 feet.
His ascent had lasted two and a half hours, in a capsule hoisted by a 55 story helium balloon rising one thousand feet a minute.
On the way down, Baumgartner became the first human to travel faster than the speed of sound without being inside a craft. He reached a top speed of mach 1.24, just under 834 miles an hour.
The only hitch: Baumgartner's visor fogged up when his helmet's heater stopped working. "This is very serious Joe, I do not think I have face heating."
Joe Kittinger, in mission control, was the voice in Baumgartner's ear.
"There it is. There's a world out there." In 1960, Kittinger, then an Air Force captain, set the freefall record with a dive from 102,000 feet. He spent four years helping train Baumgarnter for the plunge from 128,000 feet.
"I wish you could see what I can see."
Within thirty seconds, Baumgartner's preliminary speed topped out at 833 miles per hour, the first human in freefall to break the speed of sound. But there was trouble, and drama: For about ten seconds, he went into a potentially catastrophic flat spin, spinning like a top. He regained control, back in a head-down controlled position, to the relief of everyone in mission control.
His freefall lasted four minutes and nineteen seconds, more than one minute short of Kittinger's record, before his chute opened on schedule. No Olympic gymnast has stuck a landing quite like this.
"I would love from in 4 years, sitting at the same spot that Joe Kittinger is sitting and there is a young guy sitting next to me and asking for advice, because he wants to break my record."
Felix Baumgartner, the man who fell to earth like no one ever has.
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