Skydiver to fall 23 miles

Former paratrooper Felix Baumgartner may break sound barrier on record attempt

An Austrian extreme sportsman is aiming to break the long-standing record for the highest parachute jump ever.

Skydiver Felix Baumgartner, who is famous for stunts such as jumping off the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, will attempt to jump out of a plane 23 miles above the earth’s surface later this year from an unknown location in North America.

Baumgartner will ascend to the stratosphere in a pressurized capsule attached to a 450ft-high (140m) helium balloon and will likely freefall for over five minutes. It is likely that ihe will exceed the speed of sound – the first person to do so without the aid of a machine.

“The fact is you have a lot of different airflows coming around your body,” he said, “and some parts of your body are in supersonic flow and some parts are in transonic flow. What kind of reaction that creates, I can’t tell you.”

The record for the longest and highest parachute jump has been held for over fifty years by Colonel Joe Kittinger, formerly of the United States Air Force.

Kittinger jumped from a balloon at 102,800ft (31km) above the earth; as he says in the promo video “I stood up, I said a prayer and I stepped off.”

Many have sought to repeat the feat over the decades but all have failed. The most recent attempt was made in 2008 by the Frenchman Michel Fournier. The former paratrooper had spent years preparing for what he called – “Le Grand Saut”, or Big Jump, only to see his balloon break free and float off into the sky as he was about to climb inside the ascent capsule.

Kittinger is endorsing Baumgartner's jump and hopes that it will help gather knowledge to help astronauts and especially pressure suit development. Including the possibility that astronauts might even one day be able to bail from stricken craft.

“It’s probably my biggest goal, if we can prove that you can break the speed of sound and stay alive I think that’s a benefit for future space explorations,” says Baumgartner.
The Salzburg-born Austrian is the front man for the Red Bull Stratos project, and no stranger to jumping off things.

In 2007 he smashed his own record with a jump from the 101 Tower, in Taipei at 1,669.95 feet, before being beaten by Nasr Al Niyadi and Omar Al Hegelan, who on 8th January 2010 jumped from 2,200 feet.

The organisers of the project called Red Bull Stratos say, if all goes well, he should break the speed of sound about 35 seconds into his descent. However, his journey comes with considerable danger as he will need to cope with freezing temperatures and ultra-thin air. If he does not maintain a good altitude during the descent his body could go into a spin causing Baumgartner to black-out.

A BBC/National; Geographic Channel documentary is being made about Baumgartner’s project, and will be transmitted on BBC Two shortly after the jump.