Watch a man break the sound barrier. Straight down. Red Bull Stratos

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In less than four hours from the time of writing, a man will begin a journey that will culminate in him jumping out of a helium balloon 36.5 kilometres above the earth, on the edge of space, and attempting to break the sound barrier on the way down. And you can watch it live on this very page through the video stream below.

Austrian Felix Baumgartner is the skydiving expert bonkers enough to try such a feet, in order to break a record that’s stood since 1960, which US Air Force captain Joseph Kittinger bailed out from 31.3km and landed safely. Felix, and the Red Bull Stratos team organising the event, have spent years planning today’s jump, culminating in two jumps from 21.8km and 29.4km earlier this year. But despite all the planning, the high pressure suit to protect him from the vacuum at the edge of space, and Felix’s many years of experience, this is an incredibly dangerous stunt. Understandably, the below stream is on a 20 second delay in case anything goes wrong.

All being well however, in a few hours there’ll be one Austrian back on planet Earth with a very cool story to tell.

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