And Then He Just Stepped Off
On the morning of October 14, 2012, Felix Baumgartner rode a helium balloon to 39 kilometers above the New Mexico desert, stood at the open door of a capsule with the curve of the Earth behind him, and jumped. He fell for four minutes and nineteen seconds, broke the sound barrier somewhere in the middle of it, hit over 1,300 kilometers per hour in freefall, and landed on his feet. The whole world watched it happen live. I remember the specific quality of silence before he went—the way he just stood there in that absurd pressurized suit with all that black space above him, and then the way he simply stepped off. Not dramatically. No hesitation you could actually see. Just gone. There’s something about that unhesitating step I keep coming back to. Not courage exactly—courage implies fighting the fear. He just went.