Felix Baumgartner: The Man Who Fell Faster Than the Speed of Sound
On October 14, 2012, Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner did something no human had ever done before—he broke the sound barrier without any aircraft, engine, or external propulsion, using nothing but his body in freefall. Jumping from a balloon capsule 24 miles (120,000 feet) above Earth, he reached 760 mph (1,223 km/h), surpassing the speed of sound.
His record-breaking leap, part of the Red Bull Stratos project, was not just a feat of human courage but also a scientific experiment that pushed the limits of physics, aerodynamics, and space exploration.
The Jump That Made History
Baumgartner’s mission was to simulate a high-altitude emergency bailout—a situation astronauts or pilots might face if they ever had to escape from the edge of space. Dressed in a pressurized spacesuit, he a...