Space Dive

---

Sunday 14th October.

Mission control. We're

in perfect conditions for launch.

The world is watching...

To expedite the process...

..as a man in a space suit

flies a balloon to 128,000 feet.

We are away. Felix is away.

At the edge of space,

he leaves the capsule,

stands on a tiny step...

..and jumps.

He becomes the first person to fall

faster than the speed of sound.

But although the world watched,

it didn't see the whole story.

How seconds earlier, as he fell,

Felix Baumgartner lost control

and came close to disaster.

What is he doing?

He's spinning, isn't he?

How on the way up, he was nearly

forced to call off the whole jump.

We have an emergency here.

We could very well be cutting him

down any minute.

And how four years of struggles

and setbacks

pushed the mission

to the brink of collapse.

Two flights, two mission aborts -

stop selling me excuses.

What's going on?

He had the opportunity

to get trained properly.

He never took advantage of it.

Sometimes feels like

it's just too much.

This is the untold story

of how a team of scientists

and sky-divers...

Rock and roll!

..took a giant leap...

..and stunned the world.

I had this dream

when I was a little kid.

And I'm still having it

two or three times a month.

Always the same dream, you know,

I'm just walking out here

on the street,

I run for a couple of feet,

then I take off.

It was always a show-off flight

to my friends,

cos they don't believe it.

I'm always telling them,

"OK, wait until you see this."

You can do backflips, front flips,

you can do spins,

you can do whatever you want.

Then coming back after a couple

of minutes and telling them,

"See, I told you I can fly."

Felix Baumgartner

is gripped by an obsession.

He wants to fly.

Higher, further, faster

than any human has ever dared.

But to realise that dream,

he needs to break a record

that has stood

for more than fifty years.

In 1960, test pilot Joe Kittinger

volunteered for a mission

to test survival at the edge

of the Earth's atmosphere.

Protected by just a pressure suit,

he flew a balloon

beyond 100,000 feet.

Not only did he survive the flight,

at the edge of space,

he did something extraordinary.

Joe fell 19 miles back to earth.

His feat was so dangerous

and technically difficult

that it has never been matched.

Before Felix can

take on HIS near-space mission,

he needs to be trained.

Only one man has the skills

and experience for the job.

Retired Colonel...Joe Kittinger.

I think the first week after my jump

I got a phone call from a guy

wanting to beat my record.

And monthly since then, for 50 years

I've been getting calls.

99% of them

have no idea of the challenge.

Joe has come out of retirement

to help Felix break his record

and become the first person

to freefall faster

than the speed of sound.

It's kind of a weird thought

when you look at all these

supersonic planes.

And when I do my jump,

I'm travelling at the same speed.

Well, nobody's ever done it.

I can't estimate, but it's going to

be the dynamics, aeronautics,

CG changes, turbulence.

Felix really doesn't

have the experience

and the background that I had.

But he'll be going five miles higher

than what I jumped from

so I've got to be extra intense

at looking at how he's doing.

When I go supersonic speed,

I almost become an aeroplane.

You're a bomb.

A bomb?

You're a bomb.

I want to be an aeroplane,

not a bomb!

You're a bomb that can manoeuvre.

But I was born to fly.

That's right, you were born to fly.

And you'd better fly too!

Felix has already turned his

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes