When I think Red Bull, I immediately think of extreme sports, and that is for good reason. The energy drink company has played a major role in one of a kind extreme sports feats for many years. Today, another one of the projects they sponsored was carried out successfully, after five years of rigorous  training, and careful planning. Red Bull Stratos: The Mission To The Edge of Space took Austrian sky diver, Felix Baumgartner  128,000 feet above sea level to the edge of our atmosphere where Felix then stepped out of his capsule and jumped.

2012 Red Bull Content Pool

Until this point, the record for highest jump by a human being was set by Joe Kittinger in 1960 at an altitude of 102,800. Today’s record breaking jump by Felix Baumgartner topped out at roughly 128,000 feet, or approximately 24 miles about sea level. During freefall, Baumgartner broke yet another record by being the first man to break the speed of sound when he reached an estimated mach 1.2.

Baumgartner was scheduled to fly early last week, but after inflating the balloon and making final preparations, the mission had to be posponed due to some less than favorable winds around launch area. Though the team was disappointed, they pressed on and today offered the best opportunity for launch. Today worked out well and the launch and jump went off with nearly any problems. During descent, Baumgartner did find himself in a flat spin, but was able to pull out of the spin without deploying his drogue chute to correct.

His free fall time was  4 minutes, 19 seconds which was only 17 seconds short of his predecessors, Joe Kittinger’s time of 4 minutes 36 Seconds. Baumgartner had to deploy his parachute before breaking the record due to his visor fogging and freezing up. He said that he wanted to make sure he deployed his parachute before losing visibility.

2012 Red Bull Content Pool

I have been following this mission pretty intently for the past two years, and I must say, It has been nothing short of inspiring. Seeing this team work together for so long and pull off such and incredible feat is amazing. This is just proof that we can keep reaching higher and higher, and inspires me to continue persuing what I love, and that is adventure, travel, and photography! So raise a can of Red Bull to Felix Baumgartner  and the Stratos team for inspiring us all! Good job folks!

-Patrick

Stratos Mission By The Numbers

Altitude Reached: ~128,000 Feet
Maximum Landspeed: 120 mph
Helium Used: 180,000 cubic feet
Length of Uninflated Balloon:  592.41 Feet
Height From Bottom of Capsule to Top Of Balloon: ~750 feet
Nine high-definition cameras
Three 4K (4,000 x 2,000-pixel) digital cinematography cameras
Three high-resolution digital still cameras
Five small high-definition video cameras: two on each thigh and one on Felix’s chest pack

More stats will be added as they become available. Check out top stories related to Stratos here.

Other Links

Photo of Felix, just moments before stepping into the abyss: http://twitter.com/57UN/status/257547773975601152/photo/1