Felix Baumgartner: B.A.S.E. 502

You know you’re a badass when you have a codename.Felix Baumgartnera.k.a. B.A.S.E. 502 is a busy man, what with the skydiving, B.A.S.E. jumping, helicopter piloting, climbing, boxing, motocross, and rallye. How he finds time to so much as breathe is a wonder. And the only list longer than his hobbies are his accomplishments. A World Champion title for B.A.S.E. jumping, multiple records for highest AND lowest dives all over the world, multiple nominations for World Sports Awards and NEA Extreme Sports Awards, addition to the “Street of Champions”, crossing of several channels, etc., etc., etc. But what’s most impressive about ol’ 502 isn’t what he’s done, but what he’s on track to achieving.

In partnership with Red Bull, Baumgartner is currently making headway with the Stratos Project, a mission with the aim to reach the edge of space. Pooling together the collective brilliancy of leading minds in aerospace medicine, engineering, pressure suit development, capsule creation and balloon fabrication, 502’s team is more than capable of breaking such an impossible-seeming barrier. It sounds easy enough, ascending 120,000 feet in a stratospheric balloon, leaping out into a freefall at supersonic speeds before parachuting to the ground. Now all that’s left to see is if his current successes in testing will be followed by future successes in space.