Was there a triple dog dare involved?

We humans are truly amazing creatures. We have a seemingly unlimited capacity to learn, love and the desire to constantly push beyond our limits.

The people who are able to do these things and survive are known as explorers, heroes and innovators. The people who fail while attempting these things are called crazy and, more often than not, end up dead.

So what about Austrian Felix Baumgartner?

If you are like me, you probably have never heard of the guy. He is know for jumping and parachuting off of monuments in Brazil, France, Sweden and Taiwan. In 2003, he jumped from a plane 33,000 feet over Dover, England with a suit equipped with a parachute and a pair of wings. He glided 22 miles across the English Channel, landing safely in France.

Baumgartner is now 40. He feels the next logical step in his daredevil career to attempt to break the skydiving record of Col. Joe Kittinger, who jumped out of a balloon floating 102,800 feet above the ground.

Yes, that's over 19 miles up in the air.

Kittinger, now 81, survived the jump in 1960, and is on board the Red Bull Stratos crew sponsoring Baumgartner's jump. Baumgartner will wear a modified space suit for the jump, scheduled for sometime this year over North America.

Kittinger's jumps 50 years ago were an experiment in how pilots would survive ejecting from jets at high altitudes. The tests, called Project Excelsior, involved three jumps. Kittinger blacked out during the first jump and was saved by an automatic-opening parachute. During the third jump, one of his gloves malfunctioned, causing his hand to balloon to twice its normal size. He survived the jump intact.

Ever since, daredevils have been seeking to replicate Kittinger's feat. No one has succeeded.

In fact, there has been a bit of a "space race" underway for years to match or better the jump. With suborbital flight soon to become available to the general public, it makes sense that suborbital skydiving would soon follow.

The jump is, as you can imagine, fraught with peril. It is estimated that jumping from over 120,000 feet, Baumgartner would break the sound barrier during the free fall portion of his five minute descent. He would become the first human to do so without the aid of a machine.

Rick Tumlinson, another space enthusiast and entrepreneur, is launching (literally) Project SpaceDiver. It will involve jumping from suborbital rockets.

Yes, jumping out of rockets to the Earth below.

It's not surprising that Red Bull is sponsoring Baumgartner's jump. The company is known for providing a rush with their energy drinks. But a byproduct of all of this jumping from over 20 miles will more than likely be a new spacesuit design and government contract.

It is hoped that these projects will result in a suit that one day could be used as an escape device -- the ultimate escape device -- for astronauts, cosmonauts or taikonauts. That's American, Russian and Chinese spacemen to us laymen.

Anyone that has dreamed of flying would certainly consider this as close as you can get. I can not imagine the adrenaline rush that doing something like this would provide.

Since childhood, I have been patiently waiting for the flying cars that were promised shortly after WWII. When I was eight, and Apollo 11 landed on the Moon, I was promised that I would live on the Moon.

Yep, still waiting.

It will be interesting to see how this new business evolves. I wish Mr. Baumgartner all the best with his jump. There is a great deal riding on his jump. It wasn't that long ago that we were all going to be using zeppelins to travel by air, but that Hindenburg "mishap" sort of ended the dirigible craze.

At least the Red Bull marketing people chose a good name. Project Stratos will sound much better than say, Project Icarus.

Never underestimate the importance of proper branding...

As always, I welcome your comments. You can reach me by email at tstangl@lemarscomm.net, telephone 712-546-7031, x40 or toll free 1-800-728-0066 x40.

Thanks for reading, I'll keep in touch. Feel free to do the same.