The Austrian daredevil,
in fact, rose to the edge of space Sunday -- 128,100 feet, or 24 miles,
above the Earth -- before plunging faster than the speed of sound.
Minutes later, he landed in southeastern New Mexico and, dropping to his knees, pumped his fists to the sky.
"He made it -- tears of joy from Mission Control," his support team said.
Dubbed "Fearless Felix,"
the helicopter pilot and former soldier had parachuted from such
landmarks as the Petronas Towers in Malaysia and the Christ the
Redeemer
statue in Rio de Janeiro. And he'd been preparing for his latest feat
for five years -- physically, mentally and logistically.
By most accounts, all the
hard work paid off. According to preliminary findings cited by Brian
Utley, an official observer monitoring the mission, the 43-year-old
Baumgartner flew higher than anyone ever in a helium balloon and broke
the record for the highest jump.
Still, even Baumgartner
seemed taken aback when Utley detailed how fast he had fallen at one
point -- 833.9 mph, or Mach 1.24, smashing his goal to break the sound
barrier.
"I was fighting all the
way down to regain control because I wanted to break the speed of
sound," said Baumgartner, who did it all with nothing but a space suit,
helmet and parachute. "And then I hit it."
After a weather delay of
several hours, he set off at 9:30 a.m. MT (11:30 a.m. ET) Sunday from
Roswell, New Mexico, in breezy, clear conditions, strapped into a
pressurized capsule that hung from a giant helium balloon. Over the next
two hours, he rose high into the stratosphere.
Then he ran through a
40-step checklist, opened the hatch, disconnected from the capsule, and
climbed out onto a step the size of a skateboard.
"Guardian angels will take care of you," said Mission Control just before he jumped.
"The whole world is watching now," Baumgartner responded.
After giving a salute, he jumped.
Baumgartner had trained
to maximize his speed by forming a crouched "delta" position, and his
team on the ground watched for any signs of potentially perilous spins
or twists.
He experienced one hitch
during his fall about three minutes in, reporting, "My visor is fogging
up." But more problematic was when he began to veer into a "flat spin"
-- which, if it continued, could send blood rushing to his head and left
him out of control.
"There was a period of
time where I really thought, 'I am in trouble,'" Baumgartner said,
recalling how he considered pushing a button that would have released a
drogue chute and ended his bid "to fly supersonic."
"But after a couple of
seconds, I had that feeling I'm getting it under control. And I did," he
added. "And that's why I broke the speed of sound today."
Culled:CNN
Edited;LII
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