In case you missed it or you were unaware, Austrian-born Felix Baumgartner has successfully attempted and jumped from heights that no man has attempted, falling faster than any man and breaking the speed of sound in the progress. Felix has successfully jumped from a staggering height of more than 127,000 feet and fell at a speed of 1,136km/h. Apart from his helmet’s faceplate heating up and obscuring his vision during the fall, everything went according to plan and he landed safely. Speaking at the press conference after the jump, Felix had this to say:
“When I was standing there on top of the world, you become so humble, you do not think about breaking records anymore, you do not think about gaining scientific data. The only thing you want is to come back alive,”
Of course this isn’t the first time that Felix has attempted something this crazy (albeit less crazy compared to jumping from the edge of space). He has attempted various base jumps before, such as a dangerously low one from the hand of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, to illegally base jumping from landmarks such as Malaysia’s Petronas Twin Towers and Taiwan’s Taipei 101 in 1999 and 2007 respectively.
In any case this is an extremely remarkable feat and congratulations to Felix for landing safely and successfully. If you’ve got 14 minutes to spare, check out his jump in the video above. Alternatively you can check out the video below for his headcam footage, although you should be warned that there is a lot of spinning involved, so nausea could be induced.
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