An unprecedented eight million people went onto YouTube on 14 October 2012 to witness the game-changing moment Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner completed a parachute jump from a height of 38,969.4 metres, smashing through eight world records and the sound barrier in the space of just three hours.
Five years in scrupulous planning, the $20-million (£12.45-million) Red Bull Stratos project made history that day, signalling a huge leap forward in the world’s knowledge about the way the body copes with extreme conditions near space.
At 9:28 a.m. local time (3:28 p.m. GMT), Felix lifted off from Roswell, New Mexico, USA. Destination: the edge of space. Within the next few hours, Felix would be back on Earth having become the First human to break the sound barrier in freefall, completed the Highest freefall parachute jump (38,969.4 m / 127,852 ft) and achieved the Fastest speed in freefall (1,357.6 km/h / 843.6 mph).
