The footage depicting how the famous jump from the stratosphere of Felix Baumgartner took place went around the whole world and immediately became a real sensation. However, few people know that even before the Austrian extreme, attempts were made to make a jump from an incredible height.
Back in early November 1962, Soviet testers E. Andreev and P. Dolgov received a task from the leadership of the Air Force to rise to a height of over 25 kilometers and make a jump from the stratosphere. In this case, the goal was quite specific: to test how parachutes will behave when opened at different heights. If E. Andreev’s experience as a whole was a success, then for P. Dolgov this jump ended tragically: at the time of the jump from the gondola the helmet was damaged, and the officer simply suffocated due to a lack of oxygen. Andreev’s indicators for the speed and height of free fall have long been considered record-breaking and have been recorded in the Guinness Book of Records.
Another notable jump from the stratosphere was made in mid-August 1960 by the American D. Kittinger. The indicators here were even more impressive: the height of the stratospheric balloon exceeded 31 thousand meters. However, this jump was not recorded as a record for the reason that a stabilizing parachute was used during the descent.
Thus, we can conclude that the parachute jump from the stratosphere by itself was not something out of the ordinary, mankind had mastered all the stages of its implementation quite a long time ago. However, this does not detract from the merits of Felix Baumgartner, who on October 14, 2012 showed an outstanding result, having closed several records at once.
Firstly, the jump from the stratosphere itself was carried out from a height of just over 39 kilometers. A record is the indicator of the rise of the stratospheric balloon, which had never before exceeded the "modest" 35 kilometers. Secondly, for the first time in a free fall, a person overcame a sound barrier, and the maximum speed reached 1342 kilometers per hour. Finally, thirdly, F. Baumgartner made a real show of this event, and the number of views of this historical event on the Internet exceeded all conceivable and unimaginable indicators.
Actually, the jump from the stratosphere, carried out on October 14, 2012 was the result of a long and painstaking work, which took more than seven years, and several tens of millions of dollars were spent. These funds were spent on designing and creating a special capsule for a stratospheric balloon, as well as on tailoring a special suit. In addition, F. Baumgartner made hundreds of jumps from various positions, checking how enormous overloads are perceived by his body.
Despite the fact that the jump from the stratosphere was accompanied by a number of problems (for example, such that the fall was originally planned from a much lower altitude, but the stratostat behaved unpredictably and rose higher), in general, he demonstrated the enormous opportunities that mankind has for implementing the most daring plans.