Robin SwithinbankThere comes a time whenever you need to wonder if records truly are produced to become broken. On October eight, Felix Baumgartner will try to break a handful of them in 1 go by ascending 120,000 feet up in to the stratosphere inside a balloon, prior to totally free falling back to Earth. Throughout this fall he expects to reach speeds of about 700 mph, that will send him smashing via the sound barrier. None of those items has been carried out prior to. At initial glance, this

mission, dubbed the Red Bull Stratos, all sounds extremely Dan Dare -and it's. But delve in to the ins and outs of this up-and-down voyage into space, and also you quickly uncover that not a lot needs to go incorrect prior to it kills him. Baumgartner, 43, will put on a unique space suit and travel up on board a capsule developed for this objective. These two devices should not fail. At 52,000 feet, air pressure is so low that blood boils at physique temperature. And also you die.The dangers do not quit there. Circumstances at 120,000 feet -that's 36,500 metres or 23 miles, if you are counting -are inhospitable, but they are also rubbish for skydiving. There is so small density within the air at that height even a extremely educated skydiver like Baumgartner will struggle to manage his physique position as he tumbles via space.Felix Baumgartner and CEO Jean-Frederic Dufour final week in ParisThe danger zoneTalking in the launch of 's new Pilot Watch collection in Paris final week, Baumgartner admitted there is

a opportunity he will go into a flat spin, at which point the G forces acting on his physique could trigger all his blood to go into his head. "If that occurs, your eyeballs will pop out and also you die," he says with out a lot as a flicker. And if his suit leaks and his blood boils? "I'll be dead in about 15 seconds. A minimum of it'll be fast."The record for your highest totally free fall from space was set in 1960 by U.S. Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger, certainly one of the brave males from the Space Race who jumped from 102,000 feet as component of a test to discover how man react towards the circumstances at intense altitude. Throughout Kittinger's jump, certainly one of the seals about his wrist leaked and his hand swelled to twice its regular size. The swelling resealed the suit, nearly definitely saving his life. Kittinger is an adviser the the Red Bull Stratos mission and Baumgartner's radio man for your record-breaking try.The occasion, which took location at Paris' Musee des Arts et Metiers, was mainly
famous wedding dress designers held to honor the brand's Pilot lineBorn to flyBaumgartner and his vast group of aerospace engineers, physicians and psychologists are totally conscious from the dangers. "I am scared," he says. And just how does he cope with that? "Preparation. And spelling words

backwards -something my psychologist recommended I can use to distract me."In individual, Baumgartner is assured, confident, articulate -he knows this mission inside out and talks lucidly concerning the physics involved. But what I truly wish to know is why a man ought to ever really feel compelled to complete some thing like this? The dangers are so higher. "Ever because I was a kid, flying just seemed all-natural," he says, shrugging his shoulders. "And this really is about pushing the limits of what is feasible." Tattooed on his
infant flower girl dresses correct forearm would be the words "Born to fly."It's a slightly unsatisfactory answer, but if there is much more to it than that, he's not providing something away. He's completed more than three,000 skydives and BASE jumps because he joined the Austrian army at 18 and educated as a military skydiver, such as throwing himself from the leading of Taipei 101 and also the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. It's this jump, although, which will define him, and he concedes that as soon as it is carried out,
dior wedding dresses there is absolutely nothing left for him to attain within the sport that is produced him well-known. His strategy would be to use his helicopter pilot's license to turn out to be a search-and-rescue pilot along with a firefighter -high adrenalin jobs, but nonetheless, not in fairly exactly the same league as jumping from the edge of space.Time and spaceThe Stratos Flyback Striking 10th, noticed right here in the Paris occasion, will probably be Baumgartner's watch of option throughout the jump During the jump, as within the final test jump from 97,063 feet completed in July, the Austrian will put on 's Stratos Flyback Striking 10th. will be the official timing companion of Red Bull Stratos. "It's a really sophisticated watch. I've noticed how it is assembled in Le Locle, and also the way each and every small piece in that watch fits with each other to create it function completely will be the precise exact same factor because the way the Red Bull Stratos group comes with each other." The watch is unaltered from the normal model and was selected in component simply because its silicon elements would survive the circumstances in space.