Two Scary Incidents Almost Forced Felix Baumgartner To Abort His Mission
Felix Baumgartner broke the sound barrier in a 24-mile jump from the edge of space today.
But that almost didn't happen.
Two serious issues nearly forced the Austrian daredevil to abort his mission, he revealed in a press conference.
First, the heater in his visor wasn't working. This caused to his visor to fog up when he exhaled.
"On our checklist of things we had this as a mission abort. If you cannot see anything you cannot leave the capsule,” he said.
Second, immediately after bunny-hopping off the capsule Baumgartner "was supposed to get himself into a delta position — head down, arms back - as soon as possible," explains the BBC. Instead, the Austrian went into a flat spin and video footage shows him tumbling multiple times.
Baumgartner could have pulled his stabilization parachute at this point, but at the cost of gaining enough speed to break the sound barrier.
By now we all know how it ended. The extreme sportsman landed safely after 10 minutes in free fall. He reached speeds of 833.9 mph or Mach 1.24 and set several other records including highest manned balloon flight and highest skydiving jump.
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