Felix Baumgartner (German: [?fe?l?ks ?ba??m??a??tn?]; born 20 April 1969) is an Austrian skydiver, daredevil, and BASE jumper.[1] He is best known for jumping to Earth from a helium balloon from the stratosphere on 14 October 2012 and landing in New Mexico, USA as part of the Red Bull Stratos project. Doing so, he set world records for skydiving an estimated 39 km (24 mi), reaching an estimated top speed of 1,357.64 km/h (843.6 mph), or Mach 1.25.[a][b] He became the first person to break the sound barrier without vehicular power relative to the surface on his descent.[12][13] He broke skydiving records for exit altitude, vertical freefall distance with a drogue parachute, and vertical speed without a drogue. Though he still holds the two latter records, the first was broken two years later, when on 24 October 2014, Alan Eustace jumped from 135,890 feet—or, 41.42 km (25.74 mi) with a drogue
Felix Baumgartner was born the first of two boys (his brother is Gerard) in Salzburg, Austria.[17] As a child, he dreamed about flying and skydiving.[18] In 1999, he claimed the world record for the highest parachute jump from a building when he jumped from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.[19] On 20 July 2003, Baumgartner became the first person to skydive across the English Channel using a specially made carbon fiber wing.[1][20] Alban Geissler, who developed the SKYRAY carbon fiber wing with Christoph Aarns, suggested after Baumgartner's jump that the wing he used was a copy of two prototype SKYRAY wings sold to Red Bull (Baumgartner's sponsor) two years earlier.[21]
Baumgartner also set the world record for the lowest BASE jump ever, when he jumped 29 metres (95 ft) from the hand of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.[22] This jump also stirred controversy among BASE jumpers who pointed out that Baumgartner cited the height of the statue as the height of the jump even though he landed on a slope below the statue's feet, and that other BASE jumpers had previously jumped from the statue but avoided publicity.[23]
