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BASE jumping might just be about to enter the mainstream. What has typically been considered a fringe activity, reserved for thrill seekers and adrenaline junkies, could soon be firmly cemented in the public view. For the uninitiated, BASE jumping is like skydiving, without the plane. Participants throw themselves off bridges, antennae, buildings, cliffs, and well, whatever high object they can find. It’s not illegal, “in theory”, but as many of the chosen launch spots are public or private property — or pose a risk to public safety — gaining access to, or jumping from them, can mean stepping over the legal line.

This otherwise obstreperous activity has largely kept to itself, occasionally popping up in magazines, or YouTube videos, but — all going well — on Monday that changes. Serial boundary pusher (of wing suit across the English Channel fame) Felix Baumgartner is set to leap, in the most literal sense of the word, from relative obscurity into the history books. How? By jumping to earth from the edge of space, likely breaking the sound barrier as he does so. How does one go from humble Austrian beginnings to a capsule 120,000 feet (about 23 miles) above the Earth’s surface? Make a comparatively tiny leap past the break to find out.

Continue reading Leap of faith: Felix Baumgartner’s historic jump from the edge of space

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Leap of faith: Felix Baumgartner’s historic jump from the edge of space originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Oct 2012 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As we already know, daredevil Felix Baumgartner plans to hop in a pressurized capsule and using a gigantic helium balloon, ascend to 23 miles above the surface of the Earth. On October 8th, Baumgartner hopes to set a world record for the highest altitude skydive ever performed. He even plans to break the sound barrier without using an aircraft on his way down.

Some details have surfaced about the gigantic helium-filled balloon that will be used to take Baumgartner and his pressurized capsule to over 120,000 feet above the surface of the Earth. The balloon has a volume of 30 million cubic feet and will be filled with helium. The process of putting in all that helium will take up to an hour. The balloon in the photograph above is a much smaller 128 foot-tall balloon used to carry Baumgartner to altitude of 13 miles above the Earth back in March.

The balloon to be used for his record-setting jump next week will be a staggering 334 feet-tall. The balloon is incredibly thin at only 0.0008-inch thick. That is 10 times thinner than the baggy you put your sandwich in. Even at that thickness, it still weighs 3708 pounds, and can hold up to 834,497 cubic meters of helium. To put that in perspective, that’s about 280 times more helium than your average hot air balloon.

You can keep an eye on Felix’s mission over at the Red Bull Stratos website.

[via Wired]

We’ve been following the antics of Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner for months now. Baumgartner is the daredevil who plans on jumping from over 120,000 feet in the air, setting a world record and becoming the first person to break the speed of sound without an aircraft. Baumgartner has conducted several practice jumps and his latest practice jump came this week.

Baumgartner donned his pressure suit and climbed into a special capsule to take a ride to 96,640 feet above southeastern New Mexico. Once at altitude, the daredevil stepped out of the capsule and plummeted towards the ground reaching a top speed of 536 mph. After freefalling for 3 minutes and 48 seconds, Baumgartner opened his parachute.

Baumgartner was safely back on the ground 10 minutes and 30 seconds after jumping from his capsule. He had encountered a few difficulties on previous practice jumps, but there’s no word of any issues with his latest practice jump at this time. Baumgartner hopes to leap from 125,000 feet in the next month or so.

[via Space.com]