Talk about building up the tension! Yep, our favorite Austrian daredevil is back out on the New Mexico desert, hoping the weather will hold, and he can finally fall into the record books. Don’t forget, you can catch up on Felix Baumgartner’s long journey to Roswell in our project overview, but if you’re just here for the jump, no problem, as you can watch right here too. Currently conditions are looking like they might just go in Baumgartner’s favor, despite some initial concerns about wind levels. But, as we found out earlier in the week, anything can change in an instant. Hold on to your hat (and your breakfast), and hop past the break to watch the events unfold live.
Update: Some spoilers lurk ahead if you didn’t get to watch live and wanted to catch the event for yourself, so switch articles if you want to catch replays later on. For everyone else: it’s a success! Despite some worries about heat going to the helmet visor that threatened the attempt, Baumgartner has at least unofficially broken records both for the highest-ever manned balloon flight and the all-important altitude record for a jump, either of which respectively occurred just over and just under 128,000 feet. Baumgartner also broke the speed record for freefall, although he was just short of Joe Kittinger’s 4-minute, 36-second freefall duration. There’s a media event still ahead that should provide more details, but for now we’d just like to welcome Felix back to Earth.
Continue reading We have lift off: Felix Baumgartner and Red Bull Stratos launch for record-breaking space jump, watch right here (update: done!)
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We have lift off: Felix Baumgartner and Red Bull Stratos launch for record-breaking space jump, watch right here (update: done!) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Oct 2012 11:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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