Space Jump: How Red Bull Stratos captured the worlds attention (2022) Movie Script
1
WADE EASTWOOD:There was
a human being falling from space.
At speeds of live human
being has fallen for...
faster than the speed of a bullet.
[ALL APPLAUDING]
-Touchdown.
-Holy [BLEEP]. He has done it.
The global effect of how far
it reached took me by surprise.
Incredible.
ART THOMPSON: That was viewed
by half the world's population.
It seemed like one of these once
in a lifetime opportunities.
You don't want to miss.
MAN 1:Pass the line, over.
WADE:
It was one of those major events.
That's unreal.
WADE:
Where are the TV will turn around,
the whole world comes together
and watches
that to me, is what Stratos was.
Felix Baumgartner here...
They crushed all the records
of having people
watch simultaneously online.
It had the chance that it could
take down all of YouTube.
Because of the concentration
of the bandwidth
on one singular stream,
and it became a really meaningful
moment in livestreaming history.
CLAUDE RUIBAL: This was compelling
for a whole generation in their teens
and in their twenties,
because that, too,
is going to watch on those platforms.
HELMUT WAHL:
We heard that from our teenagers.
Thank you.
You gave us our moon landing.
LISA POYNTER:
This was history in the making.
Who wants to miss a second of that?
[DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING]
[MELLOW MUSIC PLAYING]
[SIGHS]
It makes me feel really good to sit
in this capsule after so many years,
and the only thing
that I have to do right now
is to talk about what we have
accomplished, 10 years ago,
makes it a lot easier.
TIM KATZ: So my job
was sports partnerships manager,
to basically be the interface
for YouTube to connect with Red Bull.
In 2012, the Internet
was very different than today,
and I think YouTube had a reputation
for mostly being dogs on skateboards
and cat videos.
CLAUDE: Livestreaming
was definitely not normal.
We've done a few live things
on the YouTube platform.
prior to the 2012 Stratos Jump.
The most meaningful metric
that we were looking at
was how many concurrent viewers
were watching this event.
That's how many people were watching
at the same point in time.
CLAUDE:
We had the Olympic Games from London,
I think it was probably
a hundred meters around Usain Bolt,
was about 600,000 live concurrence.
We'd also done
a few presidential debates,
probably say numbers
300,000 to 400,000 Live concurrence.
but nothing massive
that really tested the system.
So one of my colleagues, Tim Cats,
came to me one day with this idea
that Red Bull wanted to do,
eh, this Stratos Jump.
His reaction was a little bit,
"Are you crazy to expose us
to this kind of risk."
You know,
we could see Felix die on screen.
Not to mention a pretty incredible
technical challenge
of how do you even get video cameras
23 miles up in the air to film this.
This is not just a capsule
that protects me inside the capsule.
It's also a flying TV studio,
because what we wanted to do is,
to strap people into that seat
on the edge of space
and let them experience
what I experience.
MAN 2:All right,
stand up on the exterior step.
FELIX BAUMGARTNER:But this wasn't
just being streamed on the Internet.
I mean, we had media
partners worldwide.
which supported my training.
I think 77 TV channels
around the world,
broadcasted my jump life,
and millions of people
watched it on television.
I don't think anyone
had ever done this before.
So it was really a first ever.
Back then I was an engineer,
really soldering all the cables
underneath the dashboard
and putting everything
into the capsule.
Here we have four cameras.
There's a lot more cameras on top
because we want to capture this
and show it to the world.
We could start/stop recordings.
We could assign those video feeds
to the different downlink
than do crazy things.
So basically one decade ago,
we already realized
the remote production,
which is nowadays the password
in the broadcast industry.
Those cameras
are producing a lot of heat,
and because it's almost
a vacuum up there,
there's no air
that takes the heat away.
So we had to develop
a cooling system,
to make sure the cameras,
not overheating,
If I look at the capsule,
it allows me to go to space.
It's giving me the opportunity.
It's the only chance
to reach my goal.
That's going all the way
up to the stratosphere
and skied off back to Earth
at supersonic speed.
[LAUGHS]
I really appreciated the fact
that we have a capsule
that protects my life all the way up.
Because you know the suit,
it's the last complicated system.
If the suit malfunctions,
you're going to die.
So to have a double life
support system capsule ensued,
cannot get better than that.
But on the other hand,
it's a very heavy ship
that also requires
much speaker balloon
to get me up to jump altitude.
We thought about doing it
in a rocket plane.
But how do you get out?
Then we decided after a couple
months,
let's do it the classic way.
Sitting in the capsule,
strapped to a balloon,
going all the way up to stratosphere,
It's a piece of plastic pretty much.
33 times a soccer field,
two times as high
as the Saturn five rocket
that they used for going to the moon.
It's not the whole balloon
in this box,
Of course, it's just part of it.
Here you go. The unsung hero.
I mean, just keep in mind.
This has been in space,
a part of history.
This is what everyone has seen on TV.
And now, ten years later,
I am holding in my hand.
I think we should make a coat
out of it.
It's very fragile, you know.
It is ten times thinner
than a sandwich bag,
so it's very easy to destroy it.
So we had given the budget for weight
of 500 pounds for camera gear.
We ended up with 1,500 pounds
of camera equipment.
It was a lot of gear.
This was the largest man
balloon ever flown.
The balloon itself is 600 feet tall.
The parachute is another 150 feet,
so it's a 70 story building.
What can I tell you about Art?
Art is an extraordinary engineer.
Blessed or cursed
with the heart of an artist.
He brings the two worlds together.
I've never met anyone like him.
It was important for me
that the program be viewed
as a scientific program
and not as a promotional stunt.
The fact that Red Bull was so good,
about documenting the process
and understanding
how to expose that to the public.
that was part of the phenomenon.
of having the general public globally
be part of what was really
a fantastic event.
So a year after
my scattered from space,
my mom gave me a drawing,
a drawing
that I completely forgot about.
I did it when I was five years old.
It's me,
hanging underneath the parachute.
And it looks like I'm really high
because I'm right next to the sun.
You don't even think about skydiving
or breaking any records
at the age of five.
But it looks like
there was something in my mind,
already growing like a seed
that you plant somewhere.
I do think there was some sort
of premonition all value
to what he was imagining himself
doing eight years ahead.
He was going to be a different human.
He was going to try
things differently.
He was going to carve his own way.
FELIX: I started skydiving
when I was 16 years old.
It was a childhood dream.
From the very first second,
when I jumped out of an airplane,
I could feel
this is where I belong to.
This is what I wanted to do
for the rest of my life.
I think skydivers
and base jumpers in general,
we are a little different, right?
We see things a little differently.
Things that outside people
who don't do
what we do think are like,
that's a big deal.
You almost died.
Running from a cliff
is to me the ultimate dream.
HELMUT: I don't think the wider
public understands risk
the way you know
Felix understands it.
The definition of a daredevil
is a reckless person
doing dangerous things,
and for me, Felix was never reckless.
He thinks the feats that he did,
of course, they were dangerous.
He's not a risk taker.
He's a risk manager.
WADE: I'm a stunt coordinator.
I think what I do with film stunts
and what Felix did with Stratos,
there's a lot of crossover.
Tom Cruise, he's an actor that does
literally everything himself.
It's months or years of training
to get himself to a position
that he's so competent
that the risk factor goes right down
and that's what, you know, Felix did.
FELIX: As a base jumper,
it's a very easy relationship.
You know it, it's you, that's your
parachute and your decision making.
But working on Red Bull Stratos,
it's something completely new,
and now you have to be
become a team player.
There's so many people on the team
that you have to rely on.
I think being part of any kind
of team,
especially a team
where someone's life is on the line
and the whole world is watching.
It's hard to not get tense.
Now he was the center of
three hundred people
who were in their own right.
World class aerospace engineers,
flight test pilots, meteorologists,
you know, film production crews.
We put together what was kind of
considered the Dream Team.
FELIX: One name that popped up
at the very beginning
was Joe Kittinger.
Former Air Force colonel
who did something very similar.
He jumped from an open
controller bag in the '60s.
Joe went 202,800 feet
when he stepped off the platform.
and he got up to
614 miles an hour and free falls.
It was nine tenths
the speed of sound,
so he didn't break the sound barrier.
But that record held for 52 years.
Been there, done that.
That's the person
you have to talk to you.
With all Joe's amazing
background and history.
You know all the things
he accomplished.
He was a true American hero.
He's space cowboy,
what he's done in the past.
JACQUELINE VOSS:
Sometimes it felt a little bit
like there was
a father-son relationship.
He always said things like, attaboy.
FELIX:
I confirm everything is on the green.
-No cross, no warnings.
-Attaboy.
FELIX:Thank you, sir.
Joe wasn't a skydiver.
I mean, Joe had 33 skydives
when he jumped from a 100,000 feet.
It gives me goose bumps to think
about how scary that must have been.
The next step
would be to approach NASA,
but NASA turned us down.
ART THOMPSON:
Every time I turned around,
I was being told,
"Nope, you can't buy space suits.
You can't get the valve.
We aren't going to let you
have the balloons."
So, we were the complete underdogs,
you know?
But I don't have a problem
with being an underdog
or being underestimated.
ANDY WALSHE: This group
that had been thrown together
really had to figure out
how to get things done
in a different way.
FELIX:There wasn't anyone
in the private sector
that had actually ever engaged
in something like that.
It was very unique.
It took us almost seven years
to prepare every detail
to make sure we're on our A game.
We dropped the ball many times,
but we picked it up again.
Seven years of negotiation,
getting us to the point
where people felt like
it was all going to come together.
TIM:It was shocking, showing up
on site in Roswell, New Mexico.
It blew me away.
It was really incredible
going to Mission Control,
going into the capsules,
seeing where the cameras were set up.
There were nerves.
Everybody was nervous.
You're waiting
for the weather conditions
to be just right,
and it looks like we have the window.
And the morning of the first attempt,
uh, we started to see the viewership
on the platform
we started to creep up.
And it took everybody by surprise,
clipping past a million, two million,
eventually reaching
two and a quarter million
concurrent viewers.
Everything seems calm and perfect.
MAN 3:Whoa! Gusty winds.
LUKE AIKINS: And as I'm walking,
literally, this giant helium balloon
whips down past me,
hits the ground,
trucks are moving everywhere.
Everything got very real.
How dangerous that this could be.
Felix, the winds came up.
We'll have to abort.
We had one balloon left.
TIM: Before we aborted the attempt,
we knew this was going to be
unlike anything
anyone had ever seen on the Internet.
-14h of October.
-October 14.
-14th of October.
-October 14th.
14th of October, 2012.
I will never forget that day.
I was in Brussels, New Mexico,
in mission control.
That day, you could feel the tension
pretty much everywhere you walked.
We knew if we don't get him
off the ground this very day,
this project is not going to happen
or not going to happen
for a very long time.
FELIX:Getting into the capsule,
Mike Todd puts you in the suit,
he puts you in the capsule.
And it's the last guy
that you see be looking into his face
and you know
exactly what he's thinking.
He's like, "Hey, bro,
I hope to see you again alive."
And I thought the same thing.
Once that door is closed,
it's only me and Joe Kittinger,
communicating,
doing what we practiced
so many times before.
FELIX:I am ready Joe.
-You were born ready, Felix.
I was sitting
in front of my computer screen
on Google Hangout
with my engineering team.
Basically talking to each other
about what was happening
and how things were evolving.
TIM: We actually hit
two million concurrence
before the live stream even started.
So we just had
two million people waiting
for us to turn on the cameras
and say,
the jump is going to be
in three hours.
We have a long history
in human space flight.
We started an aerospace company
specializing in life support,
and thermal control systems
for commercial space flight.
What drew us to watching it?
It was one of the most
exciting things happening,
and it was the most exciting thing
happening on the planet that day.
I watched with my wife and daughter.
It was like a massive event.
MAN 4:We are Go for launch.
Was sitting, waiting, bated breath.
So, let's go!
MAN 5:Balloon is being released
in the lunch arm, Felix.
It's climbing up.
LISA FURST: It's so beautiful,
I mean, when it started to lift,
it's incredible.
To see that huge balloon go up,
and all worked, you know, perfectly.
MAN 6:Getting on the move now
to get that line straight.
It's good so far.
The moment of launch is exhilarating.
[ALL CHEERING]
Good release.
MAN 7:Our arms were up in the air,
screaming and yelling.
It was fantastic.
LISA:It looks sculptural,
like a piece of art.
It was a magical moment.
It was just pure magic.
MAN 8:We are going up just great.
FELIX:Thank you so much, guys.
FELIX: Once you take off,
you need to keep
that balloon in shape
all the way up to jump altitude.
I want a camera on the balloon.
FELIX:The first 300 feet,
it's called the death zone.
If something happens to the balloon,
the capsule parachute rescue system
will not open fast enough
because we are too low.
And I am also not having enough time
to unhook all my oxygen hoses,
depressurize the capsule,
and get outside the capsule.
WADE:If something goes wrong,
he's dead.
Watching as an audience,
you just see the...
You see it floating up,but
it's still quite close to the ground,
so it is not dangerous yet.
But that was actually
the most dangerous part,
apart from the free fall.
CLAUDE:
We were feeling a dual stress.
You know, there were a lot of issues
that could have gone wrong
on the streaming side
and a lot of issues
that have gone wrong
on the Stratos jump side.
We were worrying about both of those.
You swing from this staggering sense
of exhilaration and achievement
to a real kick in the guts,
check of reality, that wow.
Now we've got to make it
through this first flight.
I was properly trained
to do everything by myself, you know.
But still you want
that calming deep voice from choking,
and you're talking to you
because it calm you down.
Doing great on that cabin.
You're doing great,
and everything looks green.
It made sense for me
that Joe be the voice
that spoke to Felix
because who better,
but the guy who actually
did the jump in 1960...
Reaching a certain height
was crucial for us to know,
okay, now it's gonna work.
JOE KITTINGER:So we're pretty much
out of the worst of the danger zone.
Once we had that, you know,
it's like the first relief.
CLAUDE: So as time went by,
Felix kept getting
higher and higher in the sky,
and our live, concurrent view account
kept in higher and higher, too.
But we also thought we should plan
for potentially
as high as five million
concurrent viewers
for the for the final jump attempt,
which we thought
if we exceed five million,
it had the chance that it could
take down all of YouTube.
At one point in time
on my Google hangout,
we got to the three million number,
and I kind of threw
the question out to the team.
So everybody worth
three million live concurrence.
So what do we do now?
And I think one member
of the engineering team
set back to me.
We're not sure.
[CHUCKLES]
And that was a little scary.
Overall exciting
just to watch that altimeter.
Check, check, check, check, check.
He's doing his job.
FELIX:Feels like it was yesterday.
Everything feels familiar.
MAN 9:Doing great on that altitude,
Felix, good job!
There's a lot of stuff
going on in here.
Everything makes sense,
so there's no luxury items here.
Everything that's in here
has a function.
So if you want to start right here,
there's a light inside,
it's mostly for the cameras.
We have two radios here for Capcom,
so I can talk to Joe Kittinger
and everyone else.
Have all the checklists
here on the door.
I have everything memorized.
We had intentionally made
the life support very pilot operated
The idea is that if something happens
with the communications or the radio,
he's got to be able to operate
the 87 switches.
The worst moments are,
if your mind is not occupied.
So you're sitting there,
you're waiting, you know,
you have all those negative thoughts.
What if something goes wrong?
What if something malfunctions?
What if I don't perform well?
There're just so many things you know
because the whole world is watching.
I think that's incredible
to mentally control all your anxiety.
I think that would have taken a lot
to get to control in a calm place.
FELIX:We will spend a lot of time
in that capsule.
It's always miserable, hot,
very uncomfortable, very unpleasant.
And that's why I look at the capsule
as an enemy first,
same with the pressure suit.
You have to reprogram your mind.
See this as your friend
because the only way
to go up into the stratosphere
and sky dive back to Earth
at supersonic speed is,
if you wear that suit.
Reason why you need a pressure suit
above 63,000 feet.
It's called the Armstrong line.
Your blood starts to boil
at body temperature.
That's why you need
to have pressure around you.
You have a pressure down right here.
You turn it all the way up,
and the suit will completely inflate.
LUKE:When it is pressurized,
you have super limited mobility.
You can't move.
You can't turn your head like this.
But you're not putting your hands,
you know, and do whatever you want.
Just stop getting anxious inside,
claustrophobic.
It's hard to breathe
inside a helmet like this.
At 68,000 feet, Felix said,
"I think there's a problem
with my faceplate heater."
I do not think I have face heating.
Sometimes it's getting foggy
when I exhale.
Joe, I think this is serious.
This is really serious.
Look at this.
Fel, check your monitor.
Fel, check your monitor.
ART:
We had already prearranged a code
for what do you do in the event
that there's some issue.
And so Joe says,
"Fel, check your monitor."
And that basically means cut
the communication with the public.
JOE:There is a minor problem
with the heat in the face plate.
Mission for the time being
is continuing.
As a team,
consider what are the options?
He said, "I really think we need
to disconnect Felix
from the capsule,
which will force everything
over to the chest pack radio
to the life support on his backpack,
Had an overwhelming,
"No, you can't do that."
JACQUELINE: I was really afraid
that if he would disconnect,
we would lose comms.
ART:And if we lose communication,
will he be able to understand
what needs to be done?
MAN 10:
Okay, Felix, we think we should do.
ART:So he disconnected the
main umbilical and he ran a check.
Comms and radio came on
and he said great.
So, Felix, breathe in and out.
You should feel
the face plate heating coming on,
now you'll feel the heat.
Hey, Felix,
it appears as if it's dissipating
while you've get your breath held.
Is that what you're seeing?
It looks like, yeah.
Okay. I think we should continue
and hopefully, just pack.
Basically, I am feeling hot.
As said,
we just went from 68,000 feet
to a 118,000 feet.
So, you're already past Joe.
You've already passed his record.
All you have to do
is step out of the capsule
and you've broken Joe's record.
We had just continually gained
audience,
gaining, gaining, gaining and
then right at the top of his ascent,
the speed
at which we were gaining users
through this live stream
was like nothing any of us
had ever seen before.
At which point, we don't really know
what's going to happen,
and we don't have complete confidence
that our systems will hold up.
FELIX:Okay, Joe, ready.
JOE:Okay, here we go.
Felix, item one,
Depressurized suit,
reinstall hose and cover.
When Felix hit the jump altitude
of 128,000 feet,
we hit 8.2 million
concurrent viewers,
which still stands today
as the most viewed
live event on YouTube.
CLAUDE: So it was always
a little bit stressful
and for something this massive
you want it to go well.
The last thing we want to do
is have this thing
not work and go to black,
just as Felix has made it up
to his jump point
and everyone wants to watch that.
That moment, he was up there
and the door finally slid open
and that view
and all the camera angles captured.
It was breathtaking.
What?
-Oh, my God, see it.
-Oh, no!
[LAUGHS]
Very, very few people
that have ever seen
the Earth in that context
from just inside a space suit.
LISA: It's just sort of a hole,
flabbergasting idea
of just standing out there
and looking at the curvature
of the Earth.
My hands are already sweaty.
LISA:
Every astronaut I've ever spoken to
and from some of the quotes
that I've seen coming from Felix,
it is a truly momentous experience
to see our planet
in the context of space.
128,175 feet in the air...
-Highest freefall.
-...and he's about to jump out.
FELIX:You see the rest is not there.
You look up,
the sky is completely dark.
It's kind of black.
You look at the balloon,
it's completely inflated.
You can see how shiny the surface is.
I wish, I could stay there
a little longer.
LUKE: It must have been
the most amazing feeling
in the world to be,
basically you're standing
at the edge of space,
above you is nothing, right.
And the whole world is below you.
And I can only dream
about what that was like for him.
As said, sometimes you have
to grow up really hard
to understand how small you are.
We were all, you know,
not moving one centimeter
in that Mission Control.
My eyes were glued on the screen
and just like you got this feelings,
we got this.
We were just like,
"Yes, go ahead, do it."
It was a heart stopping moment,
and he had some big balls to do that.
FELIX:
I've never seen the whole thing
because I never watched it.
Here we go.
I'm coming home now.
He's like I'm coming home now.
I mean, that's pretty cool.
I would have said something stupid
like Geronimo or something
that wouldn't have been
nearly as iconic.
If you look at the exit,
it's nice and clean.
It couldn't be better,
Joe told me, Kittinger,
the molecules bump into each other
once a week up there.
They're so far apart.
That's how thin the air is.
So, when Felix steps off,
any momentum
that he puts into his body
is going to carry
for the next 40 seconds.
Felix left the capsule
as perfect as we drew up.
Just starts falling,
falling, falling.
ART:
Felix told me a year or so before
that he wanted to do a back flip
off of the capsule
because that's one
of his signature moves.
And I said,
well, Felix, if you do a back flip,
you will most certainly die
because you will not stop spinning.
And then for me,
the next critical point is,
when does he have control?
FELIX: I was trying
to put my arms out the little bit
that just to see how it feels,
because of the fact
that a lot of those scientists said
prior to the jump,
you're gonna spin like crazy
and the other half said
we don't think
anything is going to happen.
Um, I was mentally prepared to spin,
but I was hoping
that I'm not gonna spin.
We have physicists
from all over the world
writing us,
please don't let him do it.
His arms and legs will come off.
Joe would write them back,
you know, thank you for your concern.
You may want to double check
your calculations.
FELIX: The first 25 seconds,
it looked like everything
is under control, you know?
So, I thought at that moment,
I still remember
like it was yesterday,
"Hey, everything is cool, you know."
At that moment, it slowly starts
to spin and was getting faster.
There you go.
It's bare underneath.
LUKE: All of that is happening while
he is breaking the speed of sound
going, you know,
mock at 1.2 something like that.
TIM: It was exhilarating
to see Felix gets
at 843 miles per hour.
FELIX:That was our goal.
I wanted to be the first human
outside of an aircraft,
breaking the sound barrier.
MAN 11: Was that him breaking--
MAN 12: Yes.
At that moment,
I reached my goal well,
but I'm still spinning,
and now really it's getting worse.
And now, it's on me
to find out how to stop that spin.
You know, you have to find a solution
while the whole world is watching.
I remember
watching this with my family.
And when he started spinning
out of control,
I was... I mean, I was standing up.
I was like,
"Come on, come on, come on."
FELIX: Then, I was trying to
move my arms around a little bit,
just maybe it does something.
And then, it stopped for a second,
and at that moment,
I thought, "Okay, that was it."
But now, it starts getting
the opposite direction, you know,
and then it really ramps up.
LISA: You could cut the tension
with a knife,
and it was terrifying.
We didn't know
what was going to happen.
Eva, Felix's mother,
she had tears in her eyes,
you can see the fear
to really understand
what it means for a mother.
In that very moment,
I think you have to be a mother
and having to have a kid,
who does things like that?
LUKE:Felix gets in this position,
he flips over and goes past centered.
Now, he's on his back.
So, all of those moves
that we practiced,
all of those jumps him and I
of what to do in a spin,
everything's now backwards.
In that moment, Felix puts out
the correct hand to stop the spin,
but doesn't wait long enough.
I can't even imagine
what it's like, I mean--
And the sun is spinning around
and it's black sky.
I mean, it's intense.
It's kind of a helpless feeling
because as a skydiver
when you spin around,
you immediately know how to stop
by using the air
to your own advantage.
But here, you have no air.
It's not a very
comfortable situation.
Plus, if it gets faster and faster
at a certain rpm,
there's a lot of blood
going into your head.
It is called the red out
because the blood
is getting pushed in your skull.
There's only one way
for the blood to leave your skull
and that through your eyeballs,
it means they pop out.
Joe spun a 112 on one of his jumps.
He experienced minus 12G's.
Eh, so he had ocular hemorrhaging.
He was actually bleeding
from his eyes on one of his job.
And of course, I was aware
that if this goes on and on
and went up like crazy,
there's nothing I can do.
I'm worried that the G-Whiz
is going to fire now.
I had a G-Whiz attached to my hand.
A G-Whiz is a device
that we developed together with Luke.
At about three and a half G's
for six seconds,
the G-Whiz would deploy
the reserve parachute for you.
A drogue chute
is a round parachute that's designed
to orient your body in a way
where your head is a little bit high
and it keeps you from being able
to get in this flat spin.
FELIX:Speed 546.
FELIX: Knowing that
I'm already spinning for a while,
and G force was constantly
getting higher I knew
that G-Whiz could fire
my drogue chute any time.
And that's why I put my hands in
to trip that G-Whiz,
because as soon as put my hands in,
it's less G,
and now the G-Whiz sensor is off.
Less G that means
he's getting it under control.
That would rather solve that problem
with my skills
versus a safety device.
I was waiting for that moment
when he was gonna get enough drag,
where he could right himself
and fix himself.
You could see I was trying
to put my right hand out,
then I put my left hand out.
LUKE:Felix, stop the flat spin
and flip back over
into a positive freefall position.
That's so good.
[ALL APPLAUDING]
WADE: To recompose himself,
it's a hell of an achievement.
The forces on the body were so huge.
Once he had that
his abilities were just fine.
He was going to be okay.
We knew he's in his comfort zone,
and I think he's going to be fine.
I was stable as a rock.
And now,
it was actually the first moment,
where I had time to enjoy
the beauty of the nature.
You look at the sky, is blue now.
At that moment,
I actually start enjoying freefall.
Every leader that you fall,
you're falling
towards a better world.
More oxygen, more pressure,
more temperature.
While you still so high up,
I was constantly checking
multi-meter.
ANDY:And then,
you saw the chute just pop.
There is the chute,
there is the chute.
ANDY: I mean, at that point I was,
"Oh, my God, game over."
-We've done.
-He's done it.
FELIX:
I think this is probably a moment
where there's two guys on the team
have been really relaxed,
and that's me
because my parachute opened
and Luke Aikins,
because he packed that parachute.
[CHUCKLES]
LUKE: I was a little bit worried
that all of my skydiving community's
gonna see my opening that I packed
and it was going to be line twist
or not the best opening, you know,
and I was going to hear about that
for the rest of my life.
So I was really happy
when it was a perfectly nice opening.
Now, this is a very important moment.
Very first time after hours and hours
inside that spacesuit
that I'm breathing regular air.
So now I am reconnected
with the outside world.
The visor's open, I can breathe.
I'm back in the real world.
I love that moment
and that's in my mind forever.
And I was so worried about my landing
because after everything
works perfect,
I really want a clean landing.
[ALL CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]
That is incredible.
FELIX: So now I'm really happy
because even the landing
was just perfect.
WADE:When he landed
and dropped to his knees
and he recognized
what he just achieved.
That was when I really felt for him
and got to this far.
ANDY: I think YouTube together
with 10% of the internet
are being utilized
to sort of stream at globally.
LISA:Wow.
How did I feel?
Oh, jeez, tension relief.
I was screaming
from the top of my lungs.
We worked so hard for many years,
you know, days and nights.
You could see in his face
that this was a massive relief.
LISA:We were just dancing
and screaming and shouting.
It was just relief, pure relief.
JACQUELINE:
I went behind the tin shed,
the shed that we used
to prep the capsule in.
I called my mom
and I cried like a baby.
It was... it was crazy.
It was... it was chaotic
and all those feelings and emotions
and realizing
that it actually happened
and it all worked out fine.
DR ANDY: And I remember looking
around the room
and thinking, "Wow,"
these people have been
such an important part of our lives.
And it's probably not gonna
potentially see
many of them ever again.
You know, there's this sort of...
sort of realization
that you know it's over.
JACQUELINE:
There you go, the two boys.
[MELLOW MUSIC PLAYING]
When I looked at my phone,
my inbox was blown.
I think I could see every second...
I knew that people felt
that it was an extraordinary event.
I knew people
had been paying attention.
I was blown away by how many people
had tuned in.
[CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS]
HELMUT:We went on the media tour.
You know, wherever we went,
there were people.
There were people lining up
in front of the hotels
at four o'clock in the morning,
waiting for Felix to sign autographs.
Wherever we landed,
whatever airport it was,
there were people lining up,
it was big.
It was big.
Well, talk about a leap of faith.
There is no question
that he's a brave man.
This is something
that had never been done before.
WADE:When I met Felix,
I didn't know it was Felix,
the guy that fell from space.
He is very humble.
What Felix did
is a once in a lifetime achievement,
but it's also a once in history
achievement.
If you accomplish something
so unique,
awards are coming your way.
It's so surreal.
If you go on stage and
there's top Hollywood celebrities,
you're standing
in front of Morgan Freeman
and you know the guy because
he's one of my favorite actors.
John Travolta, for example,
awarded me
with Living Legends of Aviation.
You're standing there
and it's like...
mind blowing.
I have received many awards
whole entire life,
but this one is special.
For us at Google and YouTube,
perhaps a Red Bull, too.
It was like, "Wow, we could
pull off an amazing event
that a lot of people just felt
was crazy initially to do."
We could distribute it to everyone
who wanted to see it in the world
if they had an opportunity
to get onto the Web.
Within the first couple of weeks,
we saw over 100 million playbacks
of the event.
And now, ten years later,
we've seen almost a billion views
of content from Red Bull Stratos.
It had proved the point
that there was an audience
that we didn't think about
at that point,
and I think this is sort of like
the early phase
of what digital media
and social media has become.
Salute to our man, Felix.
Live streaming
is a part of daily life now
for billions of people
around the world.
And Stratos really paved the way
for what was possible.
JACQUELINE:Then we were nominated
for an Emmy
and we all went to New York.
And, well, we actually won.
MAN 13:
Which was super exciting, too.
But it was a bit of a surprise,
but a nice surprise.
JACQUELINE:
We have really re-used the technology
from the Stratos project.
The concept that we applied
has really realized
more cameras and events like that,
which also leads
to more perspectives for viewers.
LUKE:
Red Bull Stratos did change my life.
I got that job where I did
from 25,000 feet with no parachute
straight because of the work
I did on Stratos.
That's pretty amazing,
that that jump changed my career
and put me in a different category.
MAN 14: My goodness, Luke.
ART:Stratos had a global effect
on the flight test community.
Looking at space safety,
they actually started classes
and used Red Bull Stratos
as engineering examples
of how to do engineering program.
LUKE:
A couple years after Felix does his,
we have Alan Eustace go up
and he breaks Felix's altitude record
which would have not been possible
without all of the learnings we had.
Alan was very cool.
He goes, "Hey, I took everything
that they learned
that I could get my hands on,
and I read it all and I applied
some of that stuff in my project."
While StratEx beat
the altitude record,
we didn't beat Felix's speed record.
What was learned from Stratos,
I think,
enabled us to do StratEx safely
and the technology that kept us
from spinning up during the descent
was a direct result
of the work that Stratos did.
The legacy, you know, for me,
for Red Bull Stratos,
it's pushing the boundaries
of what's possible for a human being.
We openly disclosed all
the scientific data that we generated
and provided to the world
what we learned from that project
and how that can be applied
in those programs.
Now that is massive.
ART: The life support system
that we designed on the capsule
actually used the technology and data
to change the configuration
for life support
for things like the U-2.
And the end result was a plane
that was built in the '50s,
now flies at a cabin pressure
equivalent to 15,000 feet
and they limited
any kind of decompression sickness
or disorientation in the pilot.
TABER MACCALLUM: It showed
that there is a huge interest
in human space flight
done by private companies,
not just government space programs,
and it laid out a technical pathway
for us to go forward
with other projects
that built on what was learned
at Stratos.
ART:Red Bull Stratos
captured everybody's imagination.
They saw all the trials
and tribulations we went through,
potential issues and dangers,
because going up to near space
is a very dangerous environment.
LUKE:It's the only way
that the world advances
is by people pushing
to the next level.
And Felix has a giant page
in the history book
of opening that door for people.
The human putting themselves
out in front of the world
with a challenge
that at times was beyond them.
ART: I meet people every day
from kids that were in grammar school
to adults who were in the
flight test community to astronauts,
that would tell me
and share their stories
and share how it inspired them
to do or be part of something.
LISA:
If I want to teach my kids something
and something
I really learned from Stratos
is go out and do what you love
and find your own wings.
[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]
FELIX:Well, you know,
I had two childhood dreams
when I was a little kid.
I dreamed about skydiving
and I've dreamed
about flying helicopters.
[HELICOPTER WHIRRING]
But my parents were not rich,
I didn't make a lot of money.
So that's the reason
why I had to wait.
For a long time, it looked like
my dream is never become reality.
[HELICOPTER WHIRRING]
I want to show you my parents' house.
Most of the time
when my mom hears the helicopter,
she runs outside
and she waves like crazy.
So let's see
if it's the same thing today.
She's out there, see her waving.
[CHUCKLES]
A childhood dream,
not just becoming a helicopter pilot,
now I am even entering
the next level,
becoming
an aerobatic helicopter pilot.
[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]
The machine becomes you
and you become the machine.
It's a relationship.
And it's a very beautiful
and elegant way of life.
It gives you a level of freedom
like nothing else.
[HELICOPTER WHIRRING]
WADE:Felix and I
are both helicopter pilots
and we share that passion.
But there are not many people
that can do what Felix does
in a helicopter.
Doing full loops,
rolls in the way Felix does it.
I only know two.
And that's why I'm not going
with Felix in the helicopter
as many times he has invited me
to go with him.
FELIX:I want to take this
to an extreme level
like he did in skydiving.
I started as a regular skydiver,
took it to an extreme level
and I want to do the exact same thing
and I'm flying hard times.
[HELICOPTER WHIRRING]
I learned a lot
while working on Red Bull Stratos.
Things like being patient
or working with a team
and also how to handle setbacks.
We have been the underdogs
but we always come back stronger,
and that's how we became a family.
Before I broke the speed of sound
I was always asking myself,
"How do I want to be remembered?"
And now I guess I have the answer.
So when my time is up
and I have to leave this planet,
I will do it with a smile on my face
because I know one thing for sure,
"Big dreamers always win."
Yes!
[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]
WADE EASTWOOD:There was
a human being falling from space.
At speeds of live human
being has fallen for...
faster than the speed of a bullet.
[ALL APPLAUDING]
-Touchdown.
-Holy [BLEEP]. He has done it.
The global effect of how far
it reached took me by surprise.
Incredible.
ART THOMPSON: That was viewed
by half the world's population.
It seemed like one of these once
in a lifetime opportunities.
You don't want to miss.
MAN 1:Pass the line, over.
WADE:
It was one of those major events.
That's unreal.
WADE:
Where are the TV will turn around,
the whole world comes together
and watches
that to me, is what Stratos was.
Felix Baumgartner here...
They crushed all the records
of having people
watch simultaneously online.
It had the chance that it could
take down all of YouTube.
Because of the concentration
of the bandwidth
on one singular stream,
and it became a really meaningful
moment in livestreaming history.
CLAUDE RUIBAL: This was compelling
for a whole generation in their teens
and in their twenties,
because that, too,
is going to watch on those platforms.
HELMUT WAHL:
We heard that from our teenagers.
Thank you.
You gave us our moon landing.
LISA POYNTER:
This was history in the making.
Who wants to miss a second of that?
[DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING]
[MELLOW MUSIC PLAYING]
[SIGHS]
It makes me feel really good to sit
in this capsule after so many years,
and the only thing
that I have to do right now
is to talk about what we have
accomplished, 10 years ago,
makes it a lot easier.
TIM KATZ: So my job
was sports partnerships manager,
to basically be the interface
for YouTube to connect with Red Bull.
In 2012, the Internet
was very different than today,
and I think YouTube had a reputation
for mostly being dogs on skateboards
and cat videos.
CLAUDE: Livestreaming
was definitely not normal.
We've done a few live things
on the YouTube platform.
prior to the 2012 Stratos Jump.
The most meaningful metric
that we were looking at
was how many concurrent viewers
were watching this event.
That's how many people were watching
at the same point in time.
CLAUDE:
We had the Olympic Games from London,
I think it was probably
a hundred meters around Usain Bolt,
was about 600,000 live concurrence.
We'd also done
a few presidential debates,
probably say numbers
300,000 to 400,000 Live concurrence.
but nothing massive
that really tested the system.
So one of my colleagues, Tim Cats,
came to me one day with this idea
that Red Bull wanted to do,
eh, this Stratos Jump.
His reaction was a little bit,
"Are you crazy to expose us
to this kind of risk."
You know,
we could see Felix die on screen.
Not to mention a pretty incredible
technical challenge
of how do you even get video cameras
23 miles up in the air to film this.
This is not just a capsule
that protects me inside the capsule.
It's also a flying TV studio,
because what we wanted to do is,
to strap people into that seat
on the edge of space
and let them experience
what I experience.
MAN 2:All right,
stand up on the exterior step.
FELIX BAUMGARTNER:But this wasn't
just being streamed on the Internet.
I mean, we had media
partners worldwide.
which supported my training.
I think 77 TV channels
around the world,
broadcasted my jump life,
and millions of people
watched it on television.
I don't think anyone
had ever done this before.
So it was really a first ever.
Back then I was an engineer,
really soldering all the cables
underneath the dashboard
and putting everything
into the capsule.
Here we have four cameras.
There's a lot more cameras on top
because we want to capture this
and show it to the world.
We could start/stop recordings.
We could assign those video feeds
to the different downlink
than do crazy things.
So basically one decade ago,
we already realized
the remote production,
which is nowadays the password
in the broadcast industry.
Those cameras
are producing a lot of heat,
and because it's almost
a vacuum up there,
there's no air
that takes the heat away.
So we had to develop
a cooling system,
to make sure the cameras,
not overheating,
If I look at the capsule,
it allows me to go to space.
It's giving me the opportunity.
It's the only chance
to reach my goal.
That's going all the way
up to the stratosphere
and skied off back to Earth
at supersonic speed.
[LAUGHS]
I really appreciated the fact
that we have a capsule
that protects my life all the way up.
Because you know the suit,
it's the last complicated system.
If the suit malfunctions,
you're going to die.
So to have a double life
support system capsule ensued,
cannot get better than that.
But on the other hand,
it's a very heavy ship
that also requires
much speaker balloon
to get me up to jump altitude.
We thought about doing it
in a rocket plane.
But how do you get out?
Then we decided after a couple
months,
let's do it the classic way.
Sitting in the capsule,
strapped to a balloon,
going all the way up to stratosphere,
It's a piece of plastic pretty much.
33 times a soccer field,
two times as high
as the Saturn five rocket
that they used for going to the moon.
It's not the whole balloon
in this box,
Of course, it's just part of it.
Here you go. The unsung hero.
I mean, just keep in mind.
This has been in space,
a part of history.
This is what everyone has seen on TV.
And now, ten years later,
I am holding in my hand.
I think we should make a coat
out of it.
It's very fragile, you know.
It is ten times thinner
than a sandwich bag,
so it's very easy to destroy it.
So we had given the budget for weight
of 500 pounds for camera gear.
We ended up with 1,500 pounds
of camera equipment.
It was a lot of gear.
This was the largest man
balloon ever flown.
The balloon itself is 600 feet tall.
The parachute is another 150 feet,
so it's a 70 story building.
What can I tell you about Art?
Art is an extraordinary engineer.
Blessed or cursed
with the heart of an artist.
He brings the two worlds together.
I've never met anyone like him.
It was important for me
that the program be viewed
as a scientific program
and not as a promotional stunt.
The fact that Red Bull was so good,
about documenting the process
and understanding
how to expose that to the public.
that was part of the phenomenon.
of having the general public globally
be part of what was really
a fantastic event.
So a year after
my scattered from space,
my mom gave me a drawing,
a drawing
that I completely forgot about.
I did it when I was five years old.
It's me,
hanging underneath the parachute.
And it looks like I'm really high
because I'm right next to the sun.
You don't even think about skydiving
or breaking any records
at the age of five.
But it looks like
there was something in my mind,
already growing like a seed
that you plant somewhere.
I do think there was some sort
of premonition all value
to what he was imagining himself
doing eight years ahead.
He was going to be a different human.
He was going to try
things differently.
He was going to carve his own way.
FELIX: I started skydiving
when I was 16 years old.
It was a childhood dream.
From the very first second,
when I jumped out of an airplane,
I could feel
this is where I belong to.
This is what I wanted to do
for the rest of my life.
I think skydivers
and base jumpers in general,
we are a little different, right?
We see things a little differently.
Things that outside people
who don't do
what we do think are like,
that's a big deal.
You almost died.
Running from a cliff
is to me the ultimate dream.
HELMUT: I don't think the wider
public understands risk
the way you know
Felix understands it.
The definition of a daredevil
is a reckless person
doing dangerous things,
and for me, Felix was never reckless.
He thinks the feats that he did,
of course, they were dangerous.
He's not a risk taker.
He's a risk manager.
WADE: I'm a stunt coordinator.
I think what I do with film stunts
and what Felix did with Stratos,
there's a lot of crossover.
Tom Cruise, he's an actor that does
literally everything himself.
It's months or years of training
to get himself to a position
that he's so competent
that the risk factor goes right down
and that's what, you know, Felix did.
FELIX: As a base jumper,
it's a very easy relationship.
You know it, it's you, that's your
parachute and your decision making.
But working on Red Bull Stratos,
it's something completely new,
and now you have to be
become a team player.
There's so many people on the team
that you have to rely on.
I think being part of any kind
of team,
especially a team
where someone's life is on the line
and the whole world is watching.
It's hard to not get tense.
Now he was the center of
three hundred people
who were in their own right.
World class aerospace engineers,
flight test pilots, meteorologists,
you know, film production crews.
We put together what was kind of
considered the Dream Team.
FELIX: One name that popped up
at the very beginning
was Joe Kittinger.
Former Air Force colonel
who did something very similar.
He jumped from an open
controller bag in the '60s.
Joe went 202,800 feet
when he stepped off the platform.
and he got up to
614 miles an hour and free falls.
It was nine tenths
the speed of sound,
so he didn't break the sound barrier.
But that record held for 52 years.
Been there, done that.
That's the person
you have to talk to you.
With all Joe's amazing
background and history.
You know all the things
he accomplished.
He was a true American hero.
He's space cowboy,
what he's done in the past.
JACQUELINE VOSS:
Sometimes it felt a little bit
like there was
a father-son relationship.
He always said things like, attaboy.
FELIX:
I confirm everything is on the green.
-No cross, no warnings.
-Attaboy.
FELIX:Thank you, sir.
Joe wasn't a skydiver.
I mean, Joe had 33 skydives
when he jumped from a 100,000 feet.
It gives me goose bumps to think
about how scary that must have been.
The next step
would be to approach NASA,
but NASA turned us down.
ART THOMPSON:
Every time I turned around,
I was being told,
"Nope, you can't buy space suits.
You can't get the valve.
We aren't going to let you
have the balloons."
So, we were the complete underdogs,
you know?
But I don't have a problem
with being an underdog
or being underestimated.
ANDY WALSHE: This group
that had been thrown together
really had to figure out
how to get things done
in a different way.
FELIX:There wasn't anyone
in the private sector
that had actually ever engaged
in something like that.
It was very unique.
It took us almost seven years
to prepare every detail
to make sure we're on our A game.
We dropped the ball many times,
but we picked it up again.
Seven years of negotiation,
getting us to the point
where people felt like
it was all going to come together.
TIM:It was shocking, showing up
on site in Roswell, New Mexico.
It blew me away.
It was really incredible
going to Mission Control,
going into the capsules,
seeing where the cameras were set up.
There were nerves.
Everybody was nervous.
You're waiting
for the weather conditions
to be just right,
and it looks like we have the window.
And the morning of the first attempt,
uh, we started to see the viewership
on the platform
we started to creep up.
And it took everybody by surprise,
clipping past a million, two million,
eventually reaching
two and a quarter million
concurrent viewers.
Everything seems calm and perfect.
MAN 3:Whoa! Gusty winds.
LUKE AIKINS: And as I'm walking,
literally, this giant helium balloon
whips down past me,
hits the ground,
trucks are moving everywhere.
Everything got very real.
How dangerous that this could be.
Felix, the winds came up.
We'll have to abort.
We had one balloon left.
TIM: Before we aborted the attempt,
we knew this was going to be
unlike anything
anyone had ever seen on the Internet.
-14h of October.
-October 14.
-14th of October.
-October 14th.
14th of October, 2012.
I will never forget that day.
I was in Brussels, New Mexico,
in mission control.
That day, you could feel the tension
pretty much everywhere you walked.
We knew if we don't get him
off the ground this very day,
this project is not going to happen
or not going to happen
for a very long time.
FELIX:Getting into the capsule,
Mike Todd puts you in the suit,
he puts you in the capsule.
And it's the last guy
that you see be looking into his face
and you know
exactly what he's thinking.
He's like, "Hey, bro,
I hope to see you again alive."
And I thought the same thing.
Once that door is closed,
it's only me and Joe Kittinger,
communicating,
doing what we practiced
so many times before.
FELIX:I am ready Joe.
-You were born ready, Felix.
I was sitting
in front of my computer screen
on Google Hangout
with my engineering team.
Basically talking to each other
about what was happening
and how things were evolving.
TIM: We actually hit
two million concurrence
before the live stream even started.
So we just had
two million people waiting
for us to turn on the cameras
and say,
the jump is going to be
in three hours.
We have a long history
in human space flight.
We started an aerospace company
specializing in life support,
and thermal control systems
for commercial space flight.
What drew us to watching it?
It was one of the most
exciting things happening,
and it was the most exciting thing
happening on the planet that day.
I watched with my wife and daughter.
It was like a massive event.
MAN 4:We are Go for launch.
Was sitting, waiting, bated breath.
So, let's go!
MAN 5:Balloon is being released
in the lunch arm, Felix.
It's climbing up.
LISA FURST: It's so beautiful,
I mean, when it started to lift,
it's incredible.
To see that huge balloon go up,
and all worked, you know, perfectly.
MAN 6:Getting on the move now
to get that line straight.
It's good so far.
The moment of launch is exhilarating.
[ALL CHEERING]
Good release.
MAN 7:Our arms were up in the air,
screaming and yelling.
It was fantastic.
LISA:It looks sculptural,
like a piece of art.
It was a magical moment.
It was just pure magic.
MAN 8:We are going up just great.
FELIX:Thank you so much, guys.
FELIX: Once you take off,
you need to keep
that balloon in shape
all the way up to jump altitude.
I want a camera on the balloon.
FELIX:The first 300 feet,
it's called the death zone.
If something happens to the balloon,
the capsule parachute rescue system
will not open fast enough
because we are too low.
And I am also not having enough time
to unhook all my oxygen hoses,
depressurize the capsule,
and get outside the capsule.
WADE:If something goes wrong,
he's dead.
Watching as an audience,
you just see the...
You see it floating up,but
it's still quite close to the ground,
so it is not dangerous yet.
But that was actually
the most dangerous part,
apart from the free fall.
CLAUDE:
We were feeling a dual stress.
You know, there were a lot of issues
that could have gone wrong
on the streaming side
and a lot of issues
that have gone wrong
on the Stratos jump side.
We were worrying about both of those.
You swing from this staggering sense
of exhilaration and achievement
to a real kick in the guts,
check of reality, that wow.
Now we've got to make it
through this first flight.
I was properly trained
to do everything by myself, you know.
But still you want
that calming deep voice from choking,
and you're talking to you
because it calm you down.
Doing great on that cabin.
You're doing great,
and everything looks green.
It made sense for me
that Joe be the voice
that spoke to Felix
because who better,
but the guy who actually
did the jump in 1960...
Reaching a certain height
was crucial for us to know,
okay, now it's gonna work.
JOE KITTINGER:So we're pretty much
out of the worst of the danger zone.
Once we had that, you know,
it's like the first relief.
CLAUDE: So as time went by,
Felix kept getting
higher and higher in the sky,
and our live, concurrent view account
kept in higher and higher, too.
But we also thought we should plan
for potentially
as high as five million
concurrent viewers
for the for the final jump attempt,
which we thought
if we exceed five million,
it had the chance that it could
take down all of YouTube.
At one point in time
on my Google hangout,
we got to the three million number,
and I kind of threw
the question out to the team.
So everybody worth
three million live concurrence.
So what do we do now?
And I think one member
of the engineering team
set back to me.
We're not sure.
[CHUCKLES]
And that was a little scary.
Overall exciting
just to watch that altimeter.
Check, check, check, check, check.
He's doing his job.
FELIX:Feels like it was yesterday.
Everything feels familiar.
MAN 9:Doing great on that altitude,
Felix, good job!
There's a lot of stuff
going on in here.
Everything makes sense,
so there's no luxury items here.
Everything that's in here
has a function.
So if you want to start right here,
there's a light inside,
it's mostly for the cameras.
We have two radios here for Capcom,
so I can talk to Joe Kittinger
and everyone else.
Have all the checklists
here on the door.
I have everything memorized.
We had intentionally made
the life support very pilot operated
The idea is that if something happens
with the communications or the radio,
he's got to be able to operate
the 87 switches.
The worst moments are,
if your mind is not occupied.
So you're sitting there,
you're waiting, you know,
you have all those negative thoughts.
What if something goes wrong?
What if something malfunctions?
What if I don't perform well?
There're just so many things you know
because the whole world is watching.
I think that's incredible
to mentally control all your anxiety.
I think that would have taken a lot
to get to control in a calm place.
FELIX:We will spend a lot of time
in that capsule.
It's always miserable, hot,
very uncomfortable, very unpleasant.
And that's why I look at the capsule
as an enemy first,
same with the pressure suit.
You have to reprogram your mind.
See this as your friend
because the only way
to go up into the stratosphere
and sky dive back to Earth
at supersonic speed is,
if you wear that suit.
Reason why you need a pressure suit
above 63,000 feet.
It's called the Armstrong line.
Your blood starts to boil
at body temperature.
That's why you need
to have pressure around you.
You have a pressure down right here.
You turn it all the way up,
and the suit will completely inflate.
LUKE:When it is pressurized,
you have super limited mobility.
You can't move.
You can't turn your head like this.
But you're not putting your hands,
you know, and do whatever you want.
Just stop getting anxious inside,
claustrophobic.
It's hard to breathe
inside a helmet like this.
At 68,000 feet, Felix said,
"I think there's a problem
with my faceplate heater."
I do not think I have face heating.
Sometimes it's getting foggy
when I exhale.
Joe, I think this is serious.
This is really serious.
Look at this.
Fel, check your monitor.
Fel, check your monitor.
ART:
We had already prearranged a code
for what do you do in the event
that there's some issue.
And so Joe says,
"Fel, check your monitor."
And that basically means cut
the communication with the public.
JOE:There is a minor problem
with the heat in the face plate.
Mission for the time being
is continuing.
As a team,
consider what are the options?
He said, "I really think we need
to disconnect Felix
from the capsule,
which will force everything
over to the chest pack radio
to the life support on his backpack,
Had an overwhelming,
"No, you can't do that."
JACQUELINE: I was really afraid
that if he would disconnect,
we would lose comms.
ART:And if we lose communication,
will he be able to understand
what needs to be done?
MAN 10:
Okay, Felix, we think we should do.
ART:So he disconnected the
main umbilical and he ran a check.
Comms and radio came on
and he said great.
So, Felix, breathe in and out.
You should feel
the face plate heating coming on,
now you'll feel the heat.
Hey, Felix,
it appears as if it's dissipating
while you've get your breath held.
Is that what you're seeing?
It looks like, yeah.
Okay. I think we should continue
and hopefully, just pack.
Basically, I am feeling hot.
As said,
we just went from 68,000 feet
to a 118,000 feet.
So, you're already past Joe.
You've already passed his record.
All you have to do
is step out of the capsule
and you've broken Joe's record.
We had just continually gained
audience,
gaining, gaining, gaining and
then right at the top of his ascent,
the speed
at which we were gaining users
through this live stream
was like nothing any of us
had ever seen before.
At which point, we don't really know
what's going to happen,
and we don't have complete confidence
that our systems will hold up.
FELIX:Okay, Joe, ready.
JOE:Okay, here we go.
Felix, item one,
Depressurized suit,
reinstall hose and cover.
When Felix hit the jump altitude
of 128,000 feet,
we hit 8.2 million
concurrent viewers,
which still stands today
as the most viewed
live event on YouTube.
CLAUDE: So it was always
a little bit stressful
and for something this massive
you want it to go well.
The last thing we want to do
is have this thing
not work and go to black,
just as Felix has made it up
to his jump point
and everyone wants to watch that.
That moment, he was up there
and the door finally slid open
and that view
and all the camera angles captured.
It was breathtaking.
What?
-Oh, my God, see it.
-Oh, no!
[LAUGHS]
Very, very few people
that have ever seen
the Earth in that context
from just inside a space suit.
LISA: It's just sort of a hole,
flabbergasting idea
of just standing out there
and looking at the curvature
of the Earth.
My hands are already sweaty.
LISA:
Every astronaut I've ever spoken to
and from some of the quotes
that I've seen coming from Felix,
it is a truly momentous experience
to see our planet
in the context of space.
128,175 feet in the air...
-Highest freefall.
-...and he's about to jump out.
FELIX:You see the rest is not there.
You look up,
the sky is completely dark.
It's kind of black.
You look at the balloon,
it's completely inflated.
You can see how shiny the surface is.
I wish, I could stay there
a little longer.
LUKE: It must have been
the most amazing feeling
in the world to be,
basically you're standing
at the edge of space,
above you is nothing, right.
And the whole world is below you.
And I can only dream
about what that was like for him.
As said, sometimes you have
to grow up really hard
to understand how small you are.
We were all, you know,
not moving one centimeter
in that Mission Control.
My eyes were glued on the screen
and just like you got this feelings,
we got this.
We were just like,
"Yes, go ahead, do it."
It was a heart stopping moment,
and he had some big balls to do that.
FELIX:
I've never seen the whole thing
because I never watched it.
Here we go.
I'm coming home now.
He's like I'm coming home now.
I mean, that's pretty cool.
I would have said something stupid
like Geronimo or something
that wouldn't have been
nearly as iconic.
If you look at the exit,
it's nice and clean.
It couldn't be better,
Joe told me, Kittinger,
the molecules bump into each other
once a week up there.
They're so far apart.
That's how thin the air is.
So, when Felix steps off,
any momentum
that he puts into his body
is going to carry
for the next 40 seconds.
Felix left the capsule
as perfect as we drew up.
Just starts falling,
falling, falling.
ART:
Felix told me a year or so before
that he wanted to do a back flip
off of the capsule
because that's one
of his signature moves.
And I said,
well, Felix, if you do a back flip,
you will most certainly die
because you will not stop spinning.
And then for me,
the next critical point is,
when does he have control?
FELIX: I was trying
to put my arms out the little bit
that just to see how it feels,
because of the fact
that a lot of those scientists said
prior to the jump,
you're gonna spin like crazy
and the other half said
we don't think
anything is going to happen.
Um, I was mentally prepared to spin,
but I was hoping
that I'm not gonna spin.
We have physicists
from all over the world
writing us,
please don't let him do it.
His arms and legs will come off.
Joe would write them back,
you know, thank you for your concern.
You may want to double check
your calculations.
FELIX: The first 25 seconds,
it looked like everything
is under control, you know?
So, I thought at that moment,
I still remember
like it was yesterday,
"Hey, everything is cool, you know."
At that moment, it slowly starts
to spin and was getting faster.
There you go.
It's bare underneath.
LUKE: All of that is happening while
he is breaking the speed of sound
going, you know,
mock at 1.2 something like that.
TIM: It was exhilarating
to see Felix gets
at 843 miles per hour.
FELIX:That was our goal.
I wanted to be the first human
outside of an aircraft,
breaking the sound barrier.
MAN 11: Was that him breaking--
MAN 12: Yes.
At that moment,
I reached my goal well,
but I'm still spinning,
and now really it's getting worse.
And now, it's on me
to find out how to stop that spin.
You know, you have to find a solution
while the whole world is watching.
I remember
watching this with my family.
And when he started spinning
out of control,
I was... I mean, I was standing up.
I was like,
"Come on, come on, come on."
FELIX: Then, I was trying to
move my arms around a little bit,
just maybe it does something.
And then, it stopped for a second,
and at that moment,
I thought, "Okay, that was it."
But now, it starts getting
the opposite direction, you know,
and then it really ramps up.
LISA: You could cut the tension
with a knife,
and it was terrifying.
We didn't know
what was going to happen.
Eva, Felix's mother,
she had tears in her eyes,
you can see the fear
to really understand
what it means for a mother.
In that very moment,
I think you have to be a mother
and having to have a kid,
who does things like that?
LUKE:Felix gets in this position,
he flips over and goes past centered.
Now, he's on his back.
So, all of those moves
that we practiced,
all of those jumps him and I
of what to do in a spin,
everything's now backwards.
In that moment, Felix puts out
the correct hand to stop the spin,
but doesn't wait long enough.
I can't even imagine
what it's like, I mean--
And the sun is spinning around
and it's black sky.
I mean, it's intense.
It's kind of a helpless feeling
because as a skydiver
when you spin around,
you immediately know how to stop
by using the air
to your own advantage.
But here, you have no air.
It's not a very
comfortable situation.
Plus, if it gets faster and faster
at a certain rpm,
there's a lot of blood
going into your head.
It is called the red out
because the blood
is getting pushed in your skull.
There's only one way
for the blood to leave your skull
and that through your eyeballs,
it means they pop out.
Joe spun a 112 on one of his jumps.
He experienced minus 12G's.
Eh, so he had ocular hemorrhaging.
He was actually bleeding
from his eyes on one of his job.
And of course, I was aware
that if this goes on and on
and went up like crazy,
there's nothing I can do.
I'm worried that the G-Whiz
is going to fire now.
I had a G-Whiz attached to my hand.
A G-Whiz is a device
that we developed together with Luke.
At about three and a half G's
for six seconds,
the G-Whiz would deploy
the reserve parachute for you.
A drogue chute
is a round parachute that's designed
to orient your body in a way
where your head is a little bit high
and it keeps you from being able
to get in this flat spin.
FELIX:Speed 546.
FELIX: Knowing that
I'm already spinning for a while,
and G force was constantly
getting higher I knew
that G-Whiz could fire
my drogue chute any time.
And that's why I put my hands in
to trip that G-Whiz,
because as soon as put my hands in,
it's less G,
and now the G-Whiz sensor is off.
Less G that means
he's getting it under control.
That would rather solve that problem
with my skills
versus a safety device.
I was waiting for that moment
when he was gonna get enough drag,
where he could right himself
and fix himself.
You could see I was trying
to put my right hand out,
then I put my left hand out.
LUKE:Felix, stop the flat spin
and flip back over
into a positive freefall position.
That's so good.
[ALL APPLAUDING]
WADE: To recompose himself,
it's a hell of an achievement.
The forces on the body were so huge.
Once he had that
his abilities were just fine.
He was going to be okay.
We knew he's in his comfort zone,
and I think he's going to be fine.
I was stable as a rock.
And now,
it was actually the first moment,
where I had time to enjoy
the beauty of the nature.
You look at the sky, is blue now.
At that moment,
I actually start enjoying freefall.
Every leader that you fall,
you're falling
towards a better world.
More oxygen, more pressure,
more temperature.
While you still so high up,
I was constantly checking
multi-meter.
ANDY:And then,
you saw the chute just pop.
There is the chute,
there is the chute.
ANDY: I mean, at that point I was,
"Oh, my God, game over."
-We've done.
-He's done it.
FELIX:
I think this is probably a moment
where there's two guys on the team
have been really relaxed,
and that's me
because my parachute opened
and Luke Aikins,
because he packed that parachute.
[CHUCKLES]
LUKE: I was a little bit worried
that all of my skydiving community's
gonna see my opening that I packed
and it was going to be line twist
or not the best opening, you know,
and I was going to hear about that
for the rest of my life.
So I was really happy
when it was a perfectly nice opening.
Now, this is a very important moment.
Very first time after hours and hours
inside that spacesuit
that I'm breathing regular air.
So now I am reconnected
with the outside world.
The visor's open, I can breathe.
I'm back in the real world.
I love that moment
and that's in my mind forever.
And I was so worried about my landing
because after everything
works perfect,
I really want a clean landing.
[ALL CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]
That is incredible.
FELIX: So now I'm really happy
because even the landing
was just perfect.
WADE:When he landed
and dropped to his knees
and he recognized
what he just achieved.
That was when I really felt for him
and got to this far.
ANDY: I think YouTube together
with 10% of the internet
are being utilized
to sort of stream at globally.
LISA:Wow.
How did I feel?
Oh, jeez, tension relief.
I was screaming
from the top of my lungs.
We worked so hard for many years,
you know, days and nights.
You could see in his face
that this was a massive relief.
LISA:We were just dancing
and screaming and shouting.
It was just relief, pure relief.
JACQUELINE:
I went behind the tin shed,
the shed that we used
to prep the capsule in.
I called my mom
and I cried like a baby.
It was... it was crazy.
It was... it was chaotic
and all those feelings and emotions
and realizing
that it actually happened
and it all worked out fine.
DR ANDY: And I remember looking
around the room
and thinking, "Wow,"
these people have been
such an important part of our lives.
And it's probably not gonna
potentially see
many of them ever again.
You know, there's this sort of...
sort of realization
that you know it's over.
JACQUELINE:
There you go, the two boys.
[MELLOW MUSIC PLAYING]
When I looked at my phone,
my inbox was blown.
I think I could see every second...
I knew that people felt
that it was an extraordinary event.
I knew people
had been paying attention.
I was blown away by how many people
had tuned in.
[CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS]
HELMUT:We went on the media tour.
You know, wherever we went,
there were people.
There were people lining up
in front of the hotels
at four o'clock in the morning,
waiting for Felix to sign autographs.
Wherever we landed,
whatever airport it was,
there were people lining up,
it was big.
It was big.
Well, talk about a leap of faith.
There is no question
that he's a brave man.
This is something
that had never been done before.
WADE:When I met Felix,
I didn't know it was Felix,
the guy that fell from space.
He is very humble.
What Felix did
is a once in a lifetime achievement,
but it's also a once in history
achievement.
If you accomplish something
so unique,
awards are coming your way.
It's so surreal.
If you go on stage and
there's top Hollywood celebrities,
you're standing
in front of Morgan Freeman
and you know the guy because
he's one of my favorite actors.
John Travolta, for example,
awarded me
with Living Legends of Aviation.
You're standing there
and it's like...
mind blowing.
I have received many awards
whole entire life,
but this one is special.
For us at Google and YouTube,
perhaps a Red Bull, too.
It was like, "Wow, we could
pull off an amazing event
that a lot of people just felt
was crazy initially to do."
We could distribute it to everyone
who wanted to see it in the world
if they had an opportunity
to get onto the Web.
Within the first couple of weeks,
we saw over 100 million playbacks
of the event.
And now, ten years later,
we've seen almost a billion views
of content from Red Bull Stratos.
It had proved the point
that there was an audience
that we didn't think about
at that point,
and I think this is sort of like
the early phase
of what digital media
and social media has become.
Salute to our man, Felix.
Live streaming
is a part of daily life now
for billions of people
around the world.
And Stratos really paved the way
for what was possible.
JACQUELINE:Then we were nominated
for an Emmy
and we all went to New York.
And, well, we actually won.
MAN 13:
Which was super exciting, too.
But it was a bit of a surprise,
but a nice surprise.
JACQUELINE:
We have really re-used the technology
from the Stratos project.
The concept that we applied
has really realized
more cameras and events like that,
which also leads
to more perspectives for viewers.
LUKE:
Red Bull Stratos did change my life.
I got that job where I did
from 25,000 feet with no parachute
straight because of the work
I did on Stratos.
That's pretty amazing,
that that jump changed my career
and put me in a different category.
MAN 14: My goodness, Luke.
ART:Stratos had a global effect
on the flight test community.
Looking at space safety,
they actually started classes
and used Red Bull Stratos
as engineering examples
of how to do engineering program.
LUKE:
A couple years after Felix does his,
we have Alan Eustace go up
and he breaks Felix's altitude record
which would have not been possible
without all of the learnings we had.
Alan was very cool.
He goes, "Hey, I took everything
that they learned
that I could get my hands on,
and I read it all and I applied
some of that stuff in my project."
While StratEx beat
the altitude record,
we didn't beat Felix's speed record.
What was learned from Stratos,
I think,
enabled us to do StratEx safely
and the technology that kept us
from spinning up during the descent
was a direct result
of the work that Stratos did.
The legacy, you know, for me,
for Red Bull Stratos,
it's pushing the boundaries
of what's possible for a human being.
We openly disclosed all
the scientific data that we generated
and provided to the world
what we learned from that project
and how that can be applied
in those programs.
Now that is massive.
ART: The life support system
that we designed on the capsule
actually used the technology and data
to change the configuration
for life support
for things like the U-2.
And the end result was a plane
that was built in the '50s,
now flies at a cabin pressure
equivalent to 15,000 feet
and they limited
any kind of decompression sickness
or disorientation in the pilot.
TABER MACCALLUM: It showed
that there is a huge interest
in human space flight
done by private companies,
not just government space programs,
and it laid out a technical pathway
for us to go forward
with other projects
that built on what was learned
at Stratos.
ART:Red Bull Stratos
captured everybody's imagination.
They saw all the trials
and tribulations we went through,
potential issues and dangers,
because going up to near space
is a very dangerous environment.
LUKE:It's the only way
that the world advances
is by people pushing
to the next level.
And Felix has a giant page
in the history book
of opening that door for people.
The human putting themselves
out in front of the world
with a challenge
that at times was beyond them.
ART: I meet people every day
from kids that were in grammar school
to adults who were in the
flight test community to astronauts,
that would tell me
and share their stories
and share how it inspired them
to do or be part of something.
LISA:
If I want to teach my kids something
and something
I really learned from Stratos
is go out and do what you love
and find your own wings.
[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]
FELIX:Well, you know,
I had two childhood dreams
when I was a little kid.
I dreamed about skydiving
and I've dreamed
about flying helicopters.
[HELICOPTER WHIRRING]
But my parents were not rich,
I didn't make a lot of money.
So that's the reason
why I had to wait.
For a long time, it looked like
my dream is never become reality.
[HELICOPTER WHIRRING]
I want to show you my parents' house.
Most of the time
when my mom hears the helicopter,
she runs outside
and she waves like crazy.
So let's see
if it's the same thing today.
She's out there, see her waving.
[CHUCKLES]
A childhood dream,
not just becoming a helicopter pilot,
now I am even entering
the next level,
becoming
an aerobatic helicopter pilot.
[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]
The machine becomes you
and you become the machine.
It's a relationship.
And it's a very beautiful
and elegant way of life.
It gives you a level of freedom
like nothing else.
[HELICOPTER WHIRRING]
WADE:Felix and I
are both helicopter pilots
and we share that passion.
But there are not many people
that can do what Felix does
in a helicopter.
Doing full loops,
rolls in the way Felix does it.
I only know two.
And that's why I'm not going
with Felix in the helicopter
as many times he has invited me
to go with him.
FELIX:I want to take this
to an extreme level
like he did in skydiving.
I started as a regular skydiver,
took it to an extreme level
and I want to do the exact same thing
and I'm flying hard times.
[HELICOPTER WHIRRING]
I learned a lot
while working on Red Bull Stratos.
Things like being patient
or working with a team
and also how to handle setbacks.
We have been the underdogs
but we always come back stronger,
and that's how we became a family.
Before I broke the speed of sound
I was always asking myself,
"How do I want to be remembered?"
And now I guess I have the answer.
So when my time is up
and I have to leave this planet,
I will do it with a smile on my face
because I know one thing for sure,
"Big dreamers always win."
Yes!
[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]