Daredevil skydiver jumps into stratosphere 24 miles over New Mexico, sets new records

An Austrian daredevil jumped from a balloon 24 miles (38 km) above the planet on Sunday and broke a 52-year-old altitude record for skydiving.
   
Cheers broke out as Felix Baumgartner, 43, jumped from a tiny shelf outside the 11-by-8-foot (3.3-by-2.4 metre) fiberglass and acrylic capsule that was carried to 128,000 feet by an enormous balloon.

"We love you Felix!" screamed the crowd as he plunged through the stratosphere.

He landed about 10 minutes later, having broken the world record for the highest altitude jump by a skydiver, sponsors said.

As he prepared to jump from the pressurized capsule, Baumgartner went through a checklist of 40 items with project adviser Joe Kittinger, holder of a 19-mile high altitude parachute jump record that Baumgartner hopes to smash.

Earlier, cheers broke out as the craft took flight at 9:30 a.m. (11:30 a.m. EDT/1530 GMT). The enormous balloon rose, then  pulled into the air a capsule containing Felix Baumgartner, 43.   

His mother wept as she watched the launch, which had been scrapped several times during the previous week by high winds.   

Baumgartner's ascent into the stratosphere should take 2.5 to three hours. The descent should last just 15 to 20 minutes, more than half of it beneath the relative safety of his parachute's canopy.   

The 30 million-cubic-foot (850,000-cubic-metre) plastic balloon, is about one-tenth the thickness of a Ziploc bag, or roughly as thin as a dry cleaner bag.   

Baumgartner broke a 52-year-old high altitude parachute jump record held by project adviser Joe Kittinger. In 1960, Kittinger, now a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, jumped from a balloon flying at 102,800 feet (31,333 metres) and fell for 4 minutes and 36 seconds before opening his parachute. Baumgartner topped that with a jump from 120,000 feet and freefall for 5 minutes and 35 seconds.   

There is so little air in the upper reaches of the atmosphere that after about 30 seconds of freefall, Baumgartner moved faster than the speed of sound, which is roughly 690 mph (1,110 kph) at that altitude.   

Among the risks Baumgartner faced was the chance that his supersonic body will trigger shock waves that could collide with the force of an explosion. But Baumgartner's medical team didn't believe this situation would be very likely to occur because the air in the stratosphere would be too thin to carry the waves.   

Baumgartner would stay supersonic for about a minute before hitting a thicker part of the atmosphere, slowing his fall.   

No human has broken the sound barrier during freefall, at least not intentionally. On Jan. 25, 1966, Bill Weaver, a U.S. test pilot aboard an SR-71 Blackbird aircraft, was ejected from his damaged plane at Mach 3.18 - more than three times faster than the speed of sound - and survived.   

"It goes to show there are still challenges to overcome and you should never lose sight of trying to achieve them," Baumgartner said in an interview posted on the project's website.

Energy drink manufacturer Red Bull sponsored the skydive. The firm declined to disclose how much the project or its advertising campaign would cost.

To watch the full LBCI exclusive report please click on the video above. 

REUTERS