Previous Updates

Update 03-19-2012.

Austrian skydiver (or is he a space-diver?) Felix Baumgartner

He jumped out of a custom-built, pressurized capsule at a height of 13.5 miles (about 71,000 feet) in a first practice run for a jump that he hopes will shatter a 52-year old skydiving height record. The stats for the jump: 3 minutes and 43 seconds of free fall and a top speed of 364 mph.

Still, as high as this is it is nowhere near the world record, set way back in 1960.

It was on August 16, 1960 that Joe Kittinger of the United States Air Force jumped out of a balloon that was floating at about 102,800 feet high (about 19.5 miles), which is near the edge of space itself. In 1958, the Air Force launched Project Excelsior, which was designed to study such problems in both human and equipment terms.