CNN news 2012-06-02 加文本

cnn news 2012-06-02

AZUZ: For a skydiver who waits to open his or her parachute, terminal velocity is around 150 miles per hour. Felix Baumgartner is expected to hit that at around 5,000 feet. Of course, by then, he`ll already have dropped more than 100,000 feet. Brian Todd dives into the details on this story.

BRIAN TODD, cnn CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Later this summer, Australian daredevil Felix Baumgartner will attempt the longest and highest freefall ever, from about 120,000 feet above sea level. That`s more than 22 miles. If he pulls it off, he`ll also break the speed of sound. No one`s ever gone outside a plane or spacecraft to fly more than 690 miles per hour.

TODD: Some of the more tense moments of this mission will be when Felix Baumgartner steps out of that capsule and into the stratosphere. At that point, the only thing protecting him from certain death will be this helmet and this high pressure space suit. This is similar to ones worn by U2 spy plane pilots. But those pilots are about 50,000 feet closer to Earth than Felix Baumgartner`s going to be.

TODD (voice-over): There`s only person alive who can fathom all this, retired Air Force Colonel Joe Kittinger, the man whose record Fearless Felix will try to break. Kittinger jumped from 102, 000 feet in 1960.

COL. JOE KITTINGER, USAF (RET.): I know exactly what he`s about to go through.

TODD: What is it?

KITTINGER: He`s going to be awed by being at that altitude and that view that he`s got. But he`s also awed with the responsibility, because he`s got a bunch of people on the ground been working their rear ends off for 4-5 years with the goal to get him down. And it`s hostile up there. You don`t want to hang around if you don`t have to.

TODD (voice-over): Like Kittinger, Baumgartner will be taken to the stratosphere in a capsule pulled by a helium balloon. It`s a massive undertaking called the Red Bull Stratos Project.

TODD: Your first time here, you`re like a child in a candy store.

FELIX BAUMGARTNER, DAREDEVIL: Oh, yes, I mean, I was amazed.

TODD (voice-over): As Felix, Joe and I move around the Air and Space Museum, Felix says the sight of John Glenn`s and Yuri Gagarin`s space suits scares him.

BAUMGARTNER: If you compare it to my suit, I`m not sure if I would have done this in the old days with that kind of equipment.

TODD (voice-over): Kittinger is now a consultant on the project, who`s in Baumgartner`s ear on the test jumps.

TODD: How important is hearing his voice going to be to you when you`re up there?

BAUMGARTNER: It is extremely important, because this is what I figured on my last test jump when I was going up. Sometimes we lost communication for a couple of seconds. And immediately you can feel how lonely you feel, you know.

So I wanted to hear that voice because I`m so used to this. Every time I`d get (inaudible) practicing on the ground, Joe was talking to me. So I`m so used to that voice and it makes me feel safe.

TODD (voice-over): A mission that will obviously be tough to top, and it doesn`t look like Felix Baumgartner`s going to try to. He says after this jump, he`ll pursue his long-time dream of becoming a helicopter rescue pilot -- Brian Todd, cnn, Washington.