Today at 17:45 Clock (MEST) the extreme sportsman Felix Baumgartner wants try something unprecedented. He wants to be the first man to break through the sound barrier in a free fall. With a helium balloon he rises today from Roswell, New Mexico, into the stratosphere. At 36,579 meters above the earth he wants to get out of his capsule and plunge headlong into the abyss.
The risks associated with this jump is huge, just a thin pressure suit protects Baumgartner against cold, lack of oxygen and low air pressure. The slightest mistake can end up deadly.
Who is Felix Baumgarnter: Born in Salzburg, Austria in 1969, Felix began skydiving at the age of 16 and polished his skills as part of the Austrian military's demonstration and competition team. In 1988, he began performing skydiving exhibitions for Red Bull. The company's out-of-the-box thinking and Felix's adventurous spirit clicked, and they've collaborated ever since.
By the 1990s, Felix felt that he'd gone as far as he could with traditional skydiving, so he extended his canopy skills with BASE jumping - parachuting from a fixed object or landform. He finds that the lightning-fast reflexes and precise techniques required by such low-altitude feats also enhance his high-altitude skydiving technique.
Felix has made world-record BASE jumps and has been nominated for a World Sports Award and two categories in the NEA Extreme Sports Awards. He is also a prominent advocate for the nonprofit Wings for Life Spinal Cord Research Foundation. And, while he acknowledges that the Red Bull Stratos mission is a step into the unknown, his determination to reach the edge of space and break the speed of sound is unshakable. "If Red Bull Stratos is successful, we can share data that hasn't been available ever before," Felix states. "I would be proud to be able to make such a contribution."
It's definitely unique! I wish Felix Baumgartner strong nerves and good luck!
All images are from http://www.redbullstratos.com/
When I was watching this on Tv My heart almost stopped. Crazy
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