ROSWELL, N.M. — An Austrian daredevil lifted off on Sunday in hopes of making his delayed skydive from a balloon flying 23 miles (37 km) above the planet and breaking the sound barrier.
Cheers broke out as the craft took flight at 9:30 a.m. (11:30 a.m. EDT/1530 GMT). The enormous balloon rose, then pulled into the air a capsule containing Felix Baumgartner, 43.
His mother wept as she watched the launch, which had been scrapped several times during the previous week by high winds.
Baumgartner's ascent into the stratosphere should take 2.5 to three hours. The descent should last just 15 to 20 minutes, more than half of it beneath the relative safety of his parachute's canopy.
The 30 million-cubic-foot (850,000-cubic-metre) plastic balloon, is about one-tenth the thickness of a Ziploc bag, or roughly as thin as a dry cleaner bag.
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