holy shit. Oh fuck.

So I just watched 2+ hours of live coverage of Red Bull Stratos, which I've been following and anticipating for...years? in which Felix Baumgartner jumped from a capsule attached to a huge helium balloon from 39 KILOMETERS in the sky.

THIRTY NINE.

They broadcast the entire thing from the launch and ascent to the jump and fall and I am not exaggerating when I say it is perhaps the coolest most amazing and seriously intense thing I've ever seen.

Two hours of ascending might have been boring to some people but I had goosebumps the entire time. The views from the capsule as it climbed that showed the curvature of the earth were awe inspiring to the point that it makes me tear up.

So, the long buildup mixed with talk about how the heater on his visor was malfunctioning was giving me fits of anxiety and fear, like it would all be for nothing, or end badly.

When he confirmed he was gonna make the jump I cheered.

Going through the long checklist before the jump added even more tension. I was shaking. I cannot tell you why I was so emotionally invested in it. I just was.

and then the capsule pressure lowers enough for this to finally happen and I GASP and nearly piss myself:

 It's like something out of a science fiction movie but a million times more amazing because this is real and I am watching it and this guy is insane.

Just imagine the feeling.

Then he sticks his legs over the edge, pulls himself up, does a few more items from the checklist and then:

 I burst into tears. I shit you not. I can't believe it what I am watching.

They track him with infrared cameras as he reaches 1137 km/h (unconfirmed as of right now) in a free fall and starts spinning crazily. His audio cuts in and out and it's fucking terrifying to watch. My heart pounds.

But in the end he stabilizes and free falls for over four minutes. His audio cutting in and out, but you can clearly hear him at one point say he's "hauling ass"

and of course:

Apparently he was shy of the free fall record, which belongs to Joseph Kittinger (who I have been obsessed with since I first read about project Excelsior AND who was a large part of this project) set in 1960 and did so on purpose as a show of respect to him, which if true is amazing and probably makes him the classiest guy on the fucking planet.

And that, my friends is why science and people are fucking awesome.

I do wonder why it gets me going so much. I guess something about a person doing something like this speaks to my soul, without sounding like hippie bullshit.

No other way to explain it.

I now await the footage from the cameras mounted on his suit and the BBC documentary that will go with it. Gonna be amazing.