Felix Baumgar survived despite his Mission Controller

How Felix Baumgar managed to actually survive his 40 kilometre (24 mile) freefall I just don’t understand.

(Note the name on the capsule to avoid somebody else saying it’s theirs!)

He’s the guy who went up in a special balloon and came down on a parachute.

Woooah!

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean the height, the speed, or his skills, when I question how he managed to survive.  I mean his ground support.

There seemed to be an ancient anus in charge as the Mission Controller.

Whilst Baumgar was spinning dangerously but trying desperately to avoid a red-out and to slow his spin in order to, well, not die, and to properly control his descent, his Mission Controller was telling him he could say ‘Hi’ to random people on the frequency they were using.

Eh?  Mid death spiral this idiot wanted him to do shout-outs?  No wonder Baumgar didn’t reply.

Later, this useless Mission Controller kept repeating that the wind was coming from ‘the east’.  Over and over he said it.  Weather and wind are probably very important when you are trying to manipulate and control your descent, so the information has to be accurate, right?

Well, after 5 minutes of this constant ‘wind is from the east’ this mad Mission Controller apologises and corrects himself following an alarmed sounding female voice that could be heard correcting him.  Now he started repeating that the wind was ‘coming from the north’ not the east.  What a prat.

What if this really was mission critical information?  Could the bumbling fool have caused Baumgar’s death?

As Baumgar got closer to the ground, the Mission Dickhead changed his wind report to ‘coming from the ridge’. After repeating this dozens of times he once again apologised and corrected himself.  In fact the wind was ‘going towards the ridge’.

Again, thank goodness this wasn’t mission critical information either.

The ‘Mission Control’ centre in Roswell, New Mexico looked a bit like a NASA ‘Mssion Control’ with rows of people staring at screens looking very busy.

Thankfully the idiot occupying the comms link and giving out mis-information didn’t kill anybody this time, and Felix Baumgar went on to set that brilliant world record, and I don’t mean for the most views on Youtube.  Well done him.

Felix Baumgar is an example of what makes humanity special and our existence fun and fascinating. I love him.