Sound Barrier Broken by Felix Baumgartner

It's a small apartment but you'll love the view and it only takes 4 minutes or so to get back to earth.

My wife and I and several other family members watched Felix Baumgartner break records Sunday afternoon live on the Discovery Channel.

Baumgartner, 43, shattered the sound barrier and skydiving altitude record when he stood up on the edge of his little balloon space capsule and actually stepped off  at a distance of 128,100 feet above Roswell, N.M.

I say Roswell, at that height he could have landed in Lubbock, TX if he wanted to. See that white patch of earth to his left in the picture, that's the White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, that's his orientation point, he knows where he needs to point himself according to that little white patch on the the planet below.

Baumgartner reached a speed 833.9 mph, that's Mach 1.24, obliterating the sound barrier. More video is available at the official website, RedBullStratos.com.

What Baumgartner and the whole Stratos team did yesterday was nothing short of amazing. It took me back to the days when America's space race was still young and virtually everything we did was a first or broke a record.

It also reminded me that talent, engineering, science and guts don't come from the government, it's people.

Way to go Felix, the Stratos team and Redbull, Sunday, October 14, 2012 was a great day.