While most people wouldn’t consider skydiving from a plane, Felix Baumgartner has an entirely different relationship with heights. He’s been a professional skydiver for years and is now up to a new challenge. Felix plans to skydive from the edge of space. That’s right….space. (Seems that’s on everyone’s mind these days.)
Felix has teamed up with Red Bull Stratos, a group of space scientists sponsored by Red Bull who have built the capsule that he will use to get himself up to the edge of space. The capsule is attached to a helium balloon and weighs 1,315 kg. The inside will contain nothing but the chair that Felix will be strapped to and a control panel that lets him regulate the capsule.
After three hours, once he is 23 miles up in the air, Felix will open the thin, clear acrylic door that lets him see out to space and will launch himself towards the Earth. To put that in some perspective, 23 miles is roughly the distance between Toronto and Ajax, Ontario. Felix will free fall so fast that he will actually break the sound barrier! Which means that he will be falling at supersonic speed… we wonder what that will sound like?
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? But in this case, it could actually kill him and not make him stronger at all. Best of luck to you, Felix, as you attempt to become that first person to skydive from space, the final frontier! Be sure to write a book as soon as you land and let us know what it was like.