Joe Kittinger set the record for the highest jump in 1960, when he dropped from a helium balloon at an altitude of 31 kilometres (Image: US Air Force Archive) Felix Baumgartner will wear a flexible pressurised suit (Image: Sven Hoffmann) Baumgartner BASE jumps from Calais, France (Image: Ulrich Grill) Baumgartner will attempt to break multiple records during his freefall (Illustration: Red Bull Stratos Project)


Update on 7 February 2012: Red Bull says the jump attempt is back on for sometime in 2012. The legal challenge to the jump was resolved out of court and the jump, from a planned altitude of 36.6 kilometres, will occur above Roswell, New Mexico.

Update: On 12 October 2010, Red Bull stopped work on this project, citing a multi-million-dollar lawsuit by an entrepreneur who claimed rights to the idea.

A “space diver” will try to smash the nearly 50-year-old record for the highest jump this year, becoming the first person to go supersonic in freefall. The stunt could help engineers design escape systems for space flights.

On 16 August 1960, US Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger made history by jumping out of a balloon at an altitude of some 31,333 metres. “I stood up and said a prayer and stepped off,” he recalled (see Space diving: The ultimate extreme sport).

Since then, many have tried to break that record but none have succeeded – New Jersey native Nick Piantanida actually died trying in 1966. Now Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner has announced he will make the attempt, with help from Kittinger and sponsorship from the energy drink company Red Bull.

Baumgartner, who became the first person to cross the English Channel in freefall in 2003, will be lofted to a height of 36, 575 metres in a helium balloon. After floating up for roughly three hours, he will open the door of a 1-tonne pressurised capsule, grab the handrails on either side of the exit, and step off, potentially breaking records for the highest parachute jump, as well as the fastest and longest freefall.

Shock wave

He will face extreme peril. He should reach supersonic speeds 35 seconds after he jumps, and the resulting shock wave “is a big concern”, the project’s technical director, Art Thompson, said at a press briefing on Friday. “In early aircraft development, they thought it was a wall they couldn’t pass without breaking apart. In our case, the vehicle is flesh and blood, and he’ll be exposed to some extreme forces.”

Still, project medical director Jonathan Clark noted there has been one known instance of a pilot surviving the destruction of a plane at three times the speed of sound. “We know it’s not just theoretically possible, it’s possible,” he said.

After falling for about six minutes, Baumgartner should open his parachute at roughly 1520 metres.

The jump height is above a threshold at 19,000 metres called the Armstrong line, where the atmospheric pressure is so low that fluids start to boil. “If he opens up his face mask or the suit, all the gases in your body go out of suspension, so you literally turn into a giant fizzy, oozing fluid from your eyes and mouth, like something out of a horror film,” Thompson explained. “It’s just seconds until death.”

Flexible suit

To protect himself, Baumgartner will wear a more flexible version of the airtight, pressurised spacesuit currently used aboard the space shuttle (see Future spacesuits to act like a second skin). That will let him bend to achieve the standard, belly-down skydiving position needed to decelerate.

Another concern is uncontrolled spin, which could knock him unconscious. Sensors all over the suit will constantly monitor his acceleration for signs of spinning, as well as checking on his heart rate and position, relaying data to the ground team via a radio in a pack mounted on his chest. If needed, a drogue parachute can be deployed to stabilise his flight.

Two practice flights will be conducted at about 20,000 and 27,000 metres. Currently Baumgartner is undergoing rigorous tests in the suit at extreme cold, in vacuum chambers and in vertical wind tunnels to simulate falling.

Red Bull would not reveal the cost of the project. And though it says it will launch this year from North America, it has not yet specified a date or launch site. This uncertainty depends in part on finding the ideal weather conditions for the flight, Thompson said.

By showing that a person can safely return to Earth from that speed and altitude, the “Stratos” mission team hopes to show that astronauts might survive with similar systems if they needed to bail out of spacecraft.

“It’s human nature to want to go faster and further,” Kittinger noted, but he added he would not have signed on without the promise of getting scientific data. “We’re testing the next-generation full-pressure suits.”