Photo Gallery Falling from the Stars
Baumgartner is only the most recent daredevil to take aim at the 50-year-old freefall record, set in 1960 by Joseph Kittinger. But he has an advantage: he is sponsored by the Austrian energy drink company Red Bull.
Baumgartner will be on his own on the way down, but he will need this capsule during the ascent to protect him from the dropping atmospheric pressure outside.
He and his team have been preparing for his jump since 2007. Most of all, he has to make sure that he has the right posture when he jumps. Even the slightest mistake can send him into a dangerous flat spin.
Baumgartner has also been practicing his jumping posture, and testing his flight suit, in countless bungee jumps.
Test jumps from 8,000 meters up are also part of the training sessions. Conditions high up in the atmosphere are inhospitable in the extreme.
"When Felix jumps, his posture will be crucial because of the extreme turbulence that is created when he breaks the sound barrier," says Mission Analyst and Safety Advisor Einar Enevoldson. Sound waves ripple out much more gradually at the edge of space. Up there, the speed of sound is 1,100 kilometers per hour (690 mph), more than 10 percent slower than at sea level. If a jumper goes into a tailspin, his hands, for example, could hit the sound barrier before the rest of his body, causing injury.
Baumgartner is chasing the record of Joseph Kittinger, a former US Air Force Test pilot who is now 81. He has been approached many times by those who seek to break his record, but he always declined to help, until Baumgartner came along. "Felix is the right man to break my record," Kittinger says.
For years, Baumgartner has been a well-known BASE jumper, throwing himself off of buildings around the world, often getting himself arrested for his trouble. Here, he is shown jumping off of the 509-meter high Taipei "101 Tower" in Taiwan in December of 2007.
In 2006, Baumgartner parachuted from a helicopter onto the Turning Torso building in Malmö, Sweden. He then BASE jumped off of it.
Baumgartner jumping out of a helicopter to start the Rio quadrathalon in 2004. He has "502" tattooed between his shoulder blades: his number within the exclusive BASE-jumping fraternity. Another tattoo on his right arm proclaims: "Born to fly."
Baumgartner doing a backflip as he BASE jumps off Latin America's tallest building, the Torre Mayor in Mexico City, in 2006.
