He was lucky.

The way I see it, he was committing suicide and was lucky to escape this time. As long as he doesn’t hurt anyone else on the way down, he can kill himself any way he wants.

The medical team said they learned an amazing amount of stuff from what he experienced.

I’m a lot more impressed by Col. Kittinger who made a very similar jump back in 1960. Now that guy had guts. They barely knew what they were doing back then and he was still all for it, he even got a hole in his glove and proceeded with the jump. (and this was before any human had even been in space before so they really had no clue what was going to happen)

@Adirondackwannabe NASA is also going to use info collected about his suit.

@uberbatman That man managed to maintain a longer free fall-however he did not break the sound barrier.. I think both deserve credit, and in such cases I prefer not to compare to be honest, because both were helpful to us in some way. And in the future people will think what Felix did now was also courageous, because to them we had insufficient resources.
But in terms of guts, I’m pretty sure both have shitloads of guts, regardless of how much they knew back then. Because technically, no one knew what would happen to Felix since he was jumping from a never-before reached height. 24 miles above earth, was it?

@Luiveton he was only 2.5 miles higher than Kittinger except Felix had the benifit of being in a pressurized capsule the whole way up and with an actual space suit where as Kittinger was just riding a balloon up with a prototype suit. But yea I get what you’re saying.

It’s hard to say whether he was stupid or lucky.

@uberbatman ....2.5 miles is a big deal by the way. It really is. When you say it it doesn’t sound significant but let’s face it I can’t jump from 1 meter up without my heart skipping a few beats… So 2.5 miles…it’s a big deal.

And isn’t that the whole point of the advancement of technology and science? It all builds up…There is always a foundation to something. Every pyramid has a base. Without a pressurized capsule and an actual spacesuit we probably wouldn’t have gained such results and corresponding discoveries. If you were him you’d feel proud that you’ve made a change -no matter how minor it is to some. I’m sure all members of his family and everyone who understands the significance of this realizes how big a deal this is. He did something out of the ordinary -something we wouldn’t ever dream of doing. Doesn’t that count for something? Imagine travelling faster than sound!!

And I’d also like to give Kittinger some credit because he acted as an inspiration and a stepping stone to Mr. Baumgartner’s success.

I was amazed. I agree with @uberbatman that Col. Kittinger’s jump was far more courageous… the mindset about doing a duty for one’s country, and the national pride in being the first to do any feat – especially in the race for space – was very different than the daredevil mindset that people like Felix Baumgartner and Jeb Corliss have today. I am saddened that the political mindset, driven by corporate greed, is no longer motivated to further human exploration and knowledge of the world and the universe. I am somewhat relieved that some people, like the Stratos and Space X projects are finding ways to keep that process moving forward.

I thought it was out of this world.

I felt pretty neutral about it. Good for the guy that he found a cool way to make some money, and good for the science community’s new info. But the event itself I couldn’t care less about.

I think it was damn stupid.

As a “WTF am I doing” moment, I remember an interview where he stated his biggest fear came when he was about to step out of the capsule for the jump, and hoping he did not snag his protective suit on something.

I thought it was friggin awesome.. until he started tumbling out of control then my heart was up in my throat. I was glad they didn’t have to abort again.

Now I DID admire Nik Wallenda walking over Niaara Falls.
He made the Flying Wallendas legend expand exponentially, doing something amazing that built upon the skills he and his family before him had been developing for generations.

Disappointed. That the parachute worked. Man that would have been awesome, the first human free fall impact above the speed of sound.
I wonder if he would have exploded and splattered all across the ground, or buried in a stenciled hole in the ground.

@ragingloli he’d have literally become a human fireball!

He started decelerating as soon as he hit the atmosphere and would have hit the ground at about 125mph give or take. Because was in a space suit, most of the man-mush would be contained. There might be a couple of bounce marks in the ground. Probably a closed casket funeral XD

@Yetanotheruser no he wouldn’t have…

@majorrich Man-mush?? eww.