Zenith Type 20 Lady (16.1930.681/31.C725)

WORLDTEMPUS - 24 September 2012

There comes a time when you have to wonder if records really are made to be broken. On October 8, Felix Baumgartner will attempt to break a handful of them in one go by ascending 120,000 feet up into the stratosphere in a balloon, before free falling back to Earth. During this fall he expects to reach speeds of around 700 mph, which will send him smashing through the sound barrier. None of these things has been done before.
At first glance, this mission, dubbed the Red Bull Stratos, all sounds very Dan Dare - and it is. But delve into the ins and outs of this up-and-down voyage into space, and you soon discover that not much has to go wrong before it kills him. Baumgartner, 43, will wear a special space suit and travel up on board a capsule designed for this purpose. These two devices must not fail. At 52,000 feet, air pressure is so low that blood boils at body temperature. And you die.
The dangers don't stop there. Conditions at 120,000 feet - that's 36,500 metres or 23 miles, if you're counting - are inhospitable, but they're also rubbish for skydiving. There's so little density in the air at that height even a highly trained skydiver like Baumgartner will struggle to control his body position as he tumbles through space.

The danger zone
Talking at the launch of Zenith's new Pilot Watch collection in Paris last week, Baumgartner admitted there's a chance he will go into a flat spin, at which point the G forces acting on his body could cause all his blood to go into his head. "If that happens, your eyeballs will pop out and you die," he says without so much as a flicker. And if his suit leaks and his blood boils? "I'll be dead in about 15 seconds. At least it will be quick."

The record for the highest free fall from space was set in 1960 by U.S. Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger, one of the brave men of the Space Race who jumped from 102,000 feet as part of a test to explore how man react to the conditions at extreme altitude. During Kittinger's jump, one of the seals around his wrist leaked and his hand swelled to twice its normal size. The swelling resealed the suit, almost certainly saving his life. Kittinger is an adviser the the Red Bull Stratos mission and Baumgartner's radio man for the record-breaking attempt.

SEE THE PHOTO GALLERY OF ZENITH EVENT IN PARIS

Born to fly
Baumgartner and his vast team of aerospace engineers, doctors and psychologists are fully aware of the dangers. "I am scared," he says. And how does he deal with that? "Preparation. And spelling words backwards - something my psychologist suggested I can use to distract me."
In person, Baumgartner is assured, confident, articulate - he knows this mission inside out and talks lucidly about the physics involved. But what I really want to know is why a man should ever feel compelled to do something like this? The risks are so high. "Ever since I was a kid, flying just seemed natural," he says, shrugging his shoulders. "And this is about pushing the limits of what's possible." Tattooed on his right forearm are the words "Born to fly."
It's a slightly unsatisfactory answer, but if there's more to it than that, he's not giving anything away. He's completed over 3,000 skydives and BASE jumps since he joined the Austrian army at 18 and trained as a military skydiver, including throwing himself from the top of Taipei 101 and the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro.
It's this jump, though, that will define him, and he concedes that once it's done, there's nothing left for him to achieve in the sport that's made him famous. His plan is to use his helicopter pilot's license to become a search-and-rescue pilot and a firefighter - high adrenalin jobs, but still, not in quite the same league as jumping from the edge of space.
Time and space

During the jump, as in the last test jump from 97,063 feet completed in July, the Austrian will wear Zenith's Stratos Flyback Striking 10th. Zenith is the official timing partner of Red Bull Stratos. "It's a very sophisticated watch. I've seen how it's assembled in Le Locle, and the way every little piece in that watch fits together to make it work perfectly is the exact same thing as the way the Red Bull Stratos team comes together." The watch is unaltered from the standard model and was chosen in part because its silicon components would survive the conditions in space.
At the end of our conversation, we shake hands and I wish him good luck. He's going to need all he can get.
Follow the Red Bull Stratos mission at www.redbullstratos.com