Red Bull Stratos

Red Bull is out to really prove that they’ll give you wings with their Red Bull Stratos project. On their website, they say “Red Bull Stratos, a mission to the edge of space, seeks to surpass limits that have existed for 50 years. Felix Baumgartner will undertake a stratospheric balloon flight to 120,000 feet and attempt a freefall jump targeted to reach – for the first time in history – supersonic speeds. Driven by Red Bull and a stellar team of scientists and specialists, the mission aims to deliver valuable lessons in human endurance and high-altitude technology.”

Reading a bit more into this, Felix is basically freefalling from space towards earth and is expected to break the sound barrier. This would make him the first person to ever do that without the help of any machine/vehicle/what-have-you. The whole mission is designed to help figure out a way to get astronauts back to earth if something happens to their shuttle so that we don’t have another Challenger. NASA aren’t willing to be attached to this project in case anything goes wrong, but Red Bull sure is, and I commend them for it.

This is supposedly all taking place in August.