An Austrian helicopter pilot and daredevil by the name of Felix Baumgartner decided he’ll try to break the world record for highest skydive this coming August.
That record, by the way, is 102,800 feet and was set in 1960 by U.S. Air Force colonel Joe Kittinger. Baumgartner hopes to shatter that by jumping from an altitude of 120,000 feet.
A mile is 5,280 feet.
So how high is 120,000 feet? Well, if you were to go skydiving, you’d jump from somewhere between 12,500 and 14,500 feet. Commercial airliners, meanwhile, cruise at about 35,000 feet. And those videos made by amateurs sending HD cameras into space reach somewhere between 80,000 and 90,000 feet—which is as high as commercially available weather balloons can get without popping.
In other words: yeah, 120,000 feet is pretty much the edge of space.
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