Good NewsAustrian skydiver plans record-breaking jump from space
If you're scared of heights, this isn't good news — it is insane news.
Felix Baumgartner, an Austrian adventurer, is planning a jump from the edge of space — from a balloon 36.5 km above the ground — to break the record for the highest skydive ever.
Newser offers a height comparison:
"That's 120,000 feet; for comparison's sake, consider that the average passenger plane flies at just 35,000 feet."
He'll don a pressurized suit that will both protect him — a rip in the tougher-than-a-spacesuit could cause a rapid loss of consciousness and "could cause Baumgartner's tissues to swell and the moisture in his eyes and mouth to boil" — and provide him with oxygen.
The BBC reports that the skydiver will "fall so fast that he becomes the first person to go faster than the speed of sound unaided by a machine."
Baumgartner says that his last test has been successful:
"It means I can deliver, I can perform. The equipment will function."
The National Post reports that Baumgartner's dive is set to mark four "firsts": "the altitude record for highest manned balloon flight, the altitude record for a freefall, the distance record for longest freefall, and the speed record for fastest freefall (possibly breaking the sound barrier with his body in the process)."
Watch his TODAY interview below:
The out-of-this-world dive will happen this summer over Roswell, New Mexico. It will be captured in a BBC/National Geographic documentary.
