by CHUCK SQUATRIGLIA
Felix Baumgartner, seen in a screenshot from the live feed of his jump, moments after leaping.
He did it.
Felix Baumgartner broke the speed of sound during his stratospheric leap from 128,097 feet on Sunday and landed safely 9 minutes and 3 seconds later, touching down so gracefully that he made the whole thing look easy. He fell to his knees and raised his fists as his family, hundreds of people supporting his mission and, no doubt, the millions of people watching worldwide via the Internet cheered.
It was awesome, in every sense of the word.
The Austrian adventurer reached an unofficial speed of 834 mph — Mach 1.24 — as he fell 119,846 feet during a free fall of 4 minutes and 20 seconds. With that, he unofficially became the first person to exceed the speed of sound in free fall while also setting unofficial records for the highest skydive and highest manned balloon flight in history. The only ring he didn’t grab was longest free fall ever.
“It was harder than I expected,” Baumgarter said after returning to mission control in Roswell, New Mexico, according to The New York Times. “Trust me, when you stand up there on top of the world, you become so humble. It’s not about breaking records anymore. It’s not about getting scientific data. It’s all about coming home.”
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