It took the capsule carrying 43-year-old skydiver Felix Baumgartner two-and-a-half hours to reach the right altitude before the Austrian daredevil catapulted himself out of it,128,000 feet from the earth, hurtling through space at an average 800 miles an hour, according to a Red Bull press release.
He landed in Roswell, New Mexico.
Eight million people watched the event, which was sponsored by Red Bull, and was live-streamed on YouTube.
Shooting through space headfirst, Baumgartner reached a speed of 833.9 mph before pulling the cord to open his chute, breaking the speed of sound, which, is about 761 miles per hour, USA Today reported.
Joe Kittinger, Baumgartner's 84-year-old mentor and previous holder of the highest altitude manned balloon flight remained in contact with him via an ear piece throughout the drop. Coincidentally, it was the same day that Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947, only he was in a rocket.
The most nerve-racking moments for Baumgartner was ninety seconds into the fall when he went into a flat spin, out of control, spinning on his back, which could have resulted in loss of consciousness.
"I never felt like I was going to die, but I did think that if I don't get myself out of this (spin) I won't break the speed of sound," he said. "That would have been a big disappointment because I just don't have any energy left to do this again," he told USA Today.
"It was all way harder than I anticipated, and for about 10 seconds there I wasn't sure how I was going to get out of it," he said to USA Today.
Baumgartner got in shape for the dive, with two practice freefalls, one from 71,000 feet in March, and a second from 97,000 feet in July, according to The Guardian.
"I'm retired from the daredevil business," he said after the jump, as reported by The Guardian. "I want to find a nice decent job as a helicopter pilot. I'll fight fires and rescue people. No e-mails, no phone calls."
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