October 14th, 2012…Felix Baumgartner, one step away from making history. The first person to set record breaking the sound barrier in a 128,000 ft jump over New Mexico . . . 65 years to the day after October 14, 1947 – Capt. Charles E. “Chuck” Yeager, piloting the rocket-powered Bell X-1 to a speed of Mach 1.07, who was the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound!
This wasn’t the only record set – More than eight million people watched Austrian jumper Felix Baumgartner’s now-famous free fall to Earth from the edge of space on Sunday, making it the most-watched live video in the website’s history, the BBC reported. That made Sunday a day of records for both Baumgartner and YouTube, which is owned by Google.
First Head Cam Video of Supersonic Space Jump – Felix Baumgartner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHPx5vY3go8
Felix: When I was standing there on top of the world so humble, you are not thinking about breaking records. I was thinking about coming back alive. You do not want to die in front of your parents and all these people….I thought ‘please God, don’t let me down.
He said he considered aborting the mission twice. Once while in the capsule when his visor became to fog up because of the coldness of his breath. He explained: “At a certain time it looked like this was going to be mission abort. On our checklist of things we had this as a mission abort; if you cannot see anything you cannot leave the capsule.” The second time was at the beginning of the fall when he went into an uncontrollable spin. Baumgartner had a button which would activate a parachute which would arrest his spin but would mean that he could break no speed records.
Felix is asked what he’s going to do next. He says he wants to “inspire a generation”, and sit in the same seat as Joe Kittinger, giving advice to a youngster. The most exciting moment for him was when he was “standing on top of the world”.
Felix is at a loss to explain why he went into a spin at the beginning. He’ll have to watch the footage back… I want to know how he’ll be able to tell anything from a spinning dot.
Felix: That spin became so violent it was hard to know how to get out of it. I was able out get it under control and break the speed of sound.
Brian Utley, of FAI certification, is going through some of the numbers, which are even more impressive than we originally thought.
Lets break them down:
Exit altitude: 128,100 ft
Freefall time 4 minutes 20 seconds
Freefall distance 119,846ft
Velocity 373 metres per second or 833.9mph – which is Mach 1.24
That’s even faster than we thought. He didn’t just break speed of sound. He smashed it. Even Felix looked surprised by the speed he was travelling at when the numbers were announced.
And Felix has been asked what he said when he was 128,000ft up in the air.
Felix: I know the whole world is watching right now and I wish the world could see what I can see. Sometimes you have to go up really high to understand how small you really are.
NASA NASA Congratulations to Felix Baumgartner and @RedBullStratos on a record-breaking leap from the edge of space! http://t.co/HQIga3Ov #livejump
The jump broke another record too! More than 7.1 million people tuned into YouTubefor updates.
20.00 (13.00) He achieved the fastest ever freefall speed at 706mph during the four minutes and 19 seconds of free, according to spokesman Sarah Anderson, but she confirmed that he did not set a new record for the longest freefall.
Felix Baumgartner Stratosphere Jump FULL VIDEO!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ncc_ZZ9iCyk
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