In what was an interesting couple of nights waiting for Felix’s attempt, I tuned in late every night but conditions required postponing the attempt. That was good news, I would hate to see his team feel the pressure and make reckless decisions.

It was amazing to watch Felix ascend in the Red Bull Stratos helium balloon, a skydiver in a pressure suit ascending to the edge of space in a balloon in 2012. When Felix was cleared to jump after the pressure in the capsule equalised, he moved to the edge of the jump platform and performed his final checks, it was very intense.

If he had an issue moving or jumping clear where he damaged his helmet or pressurised suit – this would have been disastrous. He would have depressurised and suffered extensive injuries from depressurisation. Felix is no longer a base jumper or sky diver, he is a space diver after making his stratosphere jump from 39 km above the earth’s surface. 

Even during freefall, they were concerned he may rupture and haemorrhage his eyes. What a freefall, with little to no air resistance, Felex tumbled around out of control. As it transpired, the Red Bull Stratos balloon took longer to stabilise on ascent and exceeded the calculated height, so Felix jumped from 8000 feet higher than planned. 

Felix exceeded the speed of sound becoming the first person to break the sound barrier during freefall. Whilst a skydiver normally reaches a terminal velocity of 200 kph in a chest down position, or 250 – 290 kph in a head down position, instead hitting 1,357.6 kmh with a freefall height of 36,402.6 metres. 

Despite having a drogue parachute that could be deployed during his spinning freefall, Felix decided to not activate this brake, he regained control and maintained his freefall. Interestingly, the scientific data for high altitude bail-outs was collected for the commercial space industry. No one really knew if it was feasible to pursue this bail-out strategy, it is being further researched.