Skydiver breaks sound barrier in space jump

15 Oct 2012, 10:27 am   -   Source: AAP
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Daredevil Felix Baumgartner has become the first man to break the sound barrier during a freefall jump from the edge of space.

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Austrian extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner has become the first man to break the sound barrier in a 38.6-kilometre freefall from the edge of space.

The 43-year-old leapt from a capsule more than 39km above the earth, reaching a top speed of 1342km/h, or 1.24 times the speed of sound, according to organisers. No one has ever reached that speed wearing only a high-tech suit.

The altitude he leaped from also marked the highest-ever for a skydiver - more than three times the height of the average cruising altitude for a jetliner.

Organisers said the descent lasted just over nine minutes, about half of it in freefall. He travelled 36,529m in freefall for four minutes and 20 seconds before opening his red-and-white parachute and floating down to the desert in New Mexico, said Red Bull Stratos mission record keeper Brian Utley.

Mission control erupted in cheers as Baumgartner sprung from the capsule hoisted aloft by a giant helium-filled balloon to an altitude of 39,044m, even higher than expected.

"I think 20 tons have fallen from my shoulders. I prepared for this for seven years," he told German-language ServusTV in Austria in his first interview after the leap.

He lifted his arms in victory shortly after landing, setting off loud cheers from jubilant onlookers and friends inside the mission's control centre in Roswell, New Mexico.

"When I was standing there on top of the world, you become so humble, you do not think about breaking records any more, you do not think about gaining scientific data," he said.

"The only thing you want is to come back alive."

Baumgartner says that travelling faster than sound is "hard to describe because you don't feel it". With no reference points, "you don't know how fast you travel", he told reporters.

"Sometimes we have to get really high to see how small we are," he said.

Three hours earlier, Baumgartner, known as "Fearless Felix", had taken off in a pressurised capsule carried by a 55-storey ultra-thin helium balloon.

The Austrian took more than two hours to get up to the jump altitude. Baumgartner had already broken one record before he even leapt: the previous highest altitude for a manned balloon flight was 34,668m, set in 1961.

He had been due to jump from 36,576m but the balloon went higher than expected.

After an at-times tense ascent, which included concerns about how well his facial shield was working, the 43-year-old former military parachutist completed a final safety checklist with mission control.

Shortly before jumping, in footage beamed live around the world - on a crackly radio link recalling Neil Armstrong's first words on the moon - he had said: "Sometimes you have (to go) up really high to (understand) how small you are."

As he left his capsule from high above earth, he flashed a thumbs-up sign, well aware that the feat was being shown on a live stream on the internet with a 20-second delay.

Any contact with the capsule on his exit could have torn his pressurised suit, a rip that could expose him to a lack of oxygen and temperatures as low as minus 57 degrees Celsius. That could have caused lethal bubbles to form in his bodily fluids.

The biggest risk Baumgartner faced was spinning out of control, which could have exerted excessive G-force and made him lose consciousness. A controlled dive from the capsule was essential, putting him in a head-down position to increase speed.

As things transpired millions of transfixed viewers around the world looked on in agony as the Austrian started tumbling chaotically for what seemed like an eternity before finally achieving the right position.

He activated his parachute as he neared earth, gently gliding into the desert east of Roswell and landing without any apparent difficulty. The images triggered another loud cheer from onlookers at mission control, among them his mother, Eva Baumgartner, who was overcome with emotion, crying.

Coincidentally, Baumgartner's attempted feat also marked the 65th anniversary of US test pilot Chuck Yeager's successful attempt to become the first man to officially break the sound barrier aboard a plane.

At Baumgartner's insistence, some 30 cameras on the capsule, the ground and a helicopter recorded the event on Sunday. While it had been pegged as a live broadcast, organisers said was actually under a 20-second delay in case of a tragic accident.

Baumgartner's team included Joe Kittinger, who first attempted to break the sound barrier from 31.4km up in 1960, reaching a speed of 988km/h, just under the sound barrier.

As Baumgartner ascended in the balloon, so did the number of viewers watching on YouTube. Nearly 7.3 million watched as he sat on the edge of the capsule moments before jumping. After he landed, Red Bull posted a picture of Baumgartner on his knees on the ground to Facebook, generating nearly 216,000 likes, 10,000 comments and more than 29,000 shares in less than 40 minutes.

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