If you thought Red Bull’s cliff diving event in which the top divers from the world leaped from a cliff 27.3 meters up was exciting, how about a man making a leap from 36,576 meters (or 120,000 feet)?!?! This is exactly what Felix Baumgarnter hopes to do today! (Click on his name to check out his website.) This is known as Red Bull’s event of the year with good reason. As an unofficial member of the “Red Bull family” now (Thanks, Stacey! 🙂 ), I thought people might like to hear about this event. Or even better, to watch it live!
This freefall will be the highest jump mankind has ever seen! He will be attempting to break the sound barrier in freefall and hopes to make a total of 4 different world records with this jump. This is happening at any minute at 4:30pm local time here in Oman, folks. At 2:30pm “The Austrian will be (or now “was”) inserted into the capsule and ‘pre-breathe’ oxygen for two hours to eliminate nitrogen from his bloodstream, which could expand dangerously at altitude.”
Here is a cool video of Felix Baumgartner’s 5 most awesome freefalls until now including his freefall into Majlis al Jinn (here in Oman!) which was ranked as his 4th most impressive freefall to date: A little more about today’s mission in this video:
You can watch it live at RedBullStratos.com, Youtube.com/Redbull, or RedBulll.tv (with app also available on iOS & Android).
I wonder if just before he takes his leap he’ll say something cool like, “One giant leap for (a) man is…one giant leap for mankind“! 😉
Project Update – earliest launch time today 1100 MDT – 12.00 MDT, due to weather condition and strong wind between 700-800 off the ground.
“I believe in God and I truly think there is a plan that He has for everybody and I also think He has a plan for me. It looks like I’m becoming an astronaut. Locking myself in a pressure capsule and going up to 130,000 feet and I’m going to slide the door open, bail out and I’m going to be the first human person in freefall who’s breaking the speed of sound. That’s His plan and it’s probably my last goal that I have to accomplish.” (Felix Baumgartner)
Latest update: Today’s launch has been aborted at 11:42hrs MDT due to wind gusts making an attempt too risky. There is a second backup balloon but the weather may not be favourable for a launch tomorrow (10/10).
Click here for info regarding the actual launch and leap which happened Sunday October 14th, 2012!
Andy in Oman 