The Man Who Fell From Space: Felix Baumgartner Wants to ‘Inspire a Generation’

Here are some of the comments from the Press Conference given by Felix Baumgartner after his successful highest jump and where it was confirmed that he had broken the sound barrier.

Austria’s Felix Baumgartner earned his place in the history books on Sunday after overcoming concerns with  the power for his visor heater that impaired his vision and nearly jeopardized the mission. Baumgartner’s jump lasted a total of 9:03 minutes.

Just before he stepped from the capsule Felix’s exit words were:  ‘I know the whole world is watching and I wish they could see what I can see. Sometimes you have to go up really high to see how small you are.’ He also mentioned ‘Please God don’t let me down ,I am in your arms.’

Felix Baumgartner Jumps from the Edge of Space

‘When you are standing on top of the world, you don’t think of records anymore; all you think is that you want to come back alive.’

Felix described the exit as perfect but the spin became violent.  “It was an incredible up and down today, just like it’s been with the whole project,” a relieved Baumgartner said. “First we got off with a beautiful launch and then we had a bit of drama with a power supply issue to my visor. The exit was perfect but then I started spinning slowly. I thought I’d just spin a few times and that would be that, but then I started to speed up. It was really brutal at times. I thought for a few seconds that I’d lose consciousness. I didn’t feel a sonic boom because when you’re in that suit you don’t feel anything — it is like being in cast. It was really a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.”

He described the feeling of being in the pressurised suit, ‘I was trapped in the suit with  3.5 pounds per square inch, I couldn’t feel the wind.  It was like swimming without touching the water.’ As a skydiver he tried to steer with his arms and a few rolls were expected but there were a lot more and it looked at one moment as if he was out of control.

‘I thought I was in trouble. I had a choice to push the button to deploy the drogue shoot and stay alive or fight the way down.  If I pushed the button then we would not break the sound barrier. So I didn’t push it and we did break the speed of sound.’

He said this was the biggest thing he done, saying crossing the English Channel  was with a small team but this mission had  ‘so many characters, egos and it is bigger more difficult task.’  He tried not to focus on the end but to break down each into individual tasks and challenges.

Pilot Felix Baumgartner of Austria celebrates after successfully completing the final manned flight for Red Bull Stratos in Roswell, New Mexico, USA on October 14, 2012. (c) balazsgardi.com/Red Bull Content Pool

Felix landed 40 miles away from the Roswell Air Base, next to a major highway and put a smoke canister down so that the crew could race to his position.  First on the scene was the helicopter carrying the medical team, the FAI observer and camera crew. One of the happiest moments was when Felix says he saw Mike Todd’s smile and both acknowledged that  he hadn’t ended up dead lying in the corner of a field.  The capsule came down in New Mexico, 55 miles North East of Felix’s landing position. A decision was taken to release the capsule before it drifted into Texas.

Pilot Felix Baumgartner of Austria and Technical Project Director Art Thompson of the Unites States celebrate after successfully completing the final manned flight for Red Bull Stratos in Roswell, New Mexico, USA on October 14, 2012. (c) Jörg Mitter/Red Bull Content Pool

Felix says ‘I want to inspire the next generation.  I want to inspire the next generation. As I sit here next to Joe Kittinger in this press conference, I’m hoping that in 40 years there will be someone asking my advice because he wants to break my records.’

I would say this is totally different than anything I’ve ever done. You have to understand how hard it is to perform at a 100-percent level in front of the world, while there were still unknowns we had to overcome — it is way more difficult that everything I’ve done so far.

Joe Kittinger says ‘a better champion and athlete couldn’t be found .’

As a parting shot Joe wanted to pass on this message: ‘A one finger salute to all the folks who said Felix would  blow apart when he went supersonic.’

Three records broken: (subject to both the official world governing body for certification of aeronautic records, Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) and the Austrian authorities) Announced at the Press Conference by by FAI Observer Brian G Utley:

Highest Jump 128,100 ft / 39,044 meters

Longest Freefall 4 min 20 sec

Highest Vertical Velocity

373 metres per second

1,342 km/per hour /  833 miles p/h

which is Mach 1.24.

Congratulations to Felix Baumgartner. A hero was made today.

FELIX BAUMGARTNER

Reported by: @alangreenhalgh