I don’t know about you, but I was f*cking GLUED to the Space Jump when it happened back on October 14, 2012 — Actually, Igor Fernando de Oliveira Da Silva and I from CAST (I love his long ass name) were in town doing LDI 2012! That was the big Blacktrax demo room year.
This guy was jumping out of the plane right as we were getting into the cab at the airport. This was so freaking cool, and watching this HD footage of it just totally made my morning. GAH, the nuts on this guy!
Honestly though… if you wanna read an even cooler, ballsier, more selfless story, read about the big voice you hear on the recordings… that guy is Colonel Joseph W. Kittinger of the United States Air Force. Felix Baumgartner’s team hired Joe to help Felix do the deed. Joe did the deed first, jumping from some crazy 102,800 feet above the Earth’s surface. Felix’s jump beat Joe’s record, but Joe’s record stood since the damned thing was set. How cool.
An interesting side note on the initial record setting jump by Kittinger — Colonel Kittinger’s final attempt at the space jump almost failed because somewhere in the 40,000-50,000 foot ascention range, a hole in Joe’s glove caused his hand to basically double in size. At that time, he decided that the mission’s data and all of the work that he and the team had put into this was more important to see through than the pain he had in his hand. Now how bad ass is that??? “Pardon me, I’m Joe Kittinger, and I need a truck for my nuts!”
Felix’s HD footage from GoPro of the record breaking space jump:
Now, also completely worthy (and someone added some neat music in the background) — Colonel Joe’s jump back in the day:
Ooooh, and an even cooler video on Project Excelsior, the project classification name of Joe’s jump:
Jumping From Space from Spacecraft Films on Vimeo.
I’m confused. That video’s from two years ago.
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