I know, I know. You came to With Leather, saw a sorta-sports-related story being animated and thought it was from Next Media Animation in Taiwan. You click expecting Felix Baumgartner to get shoved out of his balloon by a panda, clip an angel version of Tim Tebow on the way down and land on a bed of spikes.

But no, not today. Today, we share CGI dramatizations for science.

Watch the CGI clip for Felix Baumgartner’s World Record Supersonic Freefall.

Baumgartner reached an estimated speed of 1,357.6 km/h or 843.6 mph(Mach 1.25) jumping from the stratosphere, which when certified will make him the first man to break the speed of sound in freefall and set several other records while delivering valuable data for future space exploration.

The only real question about Baumgartner’s jump (now that “will he die” and “omg, is he going to fall out of space and die” have been answered) is, “When are we going to see the GoPro footage?” They put a camera in his helmet for the jump, right? They put GoPro cameras on pro wrestlers and dogs playing fetch these days, of COURSE if a guy was going to execute a corporately-sponsored jump to his Space Doom they’re going to outfit him with a dozen recording devices.

Make it happen, Red Bull. Or at least get somebody to speak in Taiwanese over your info videos.

[via DoobyBrain]

In what we have dubbed one of our most important and biggest sports moment of 2012, and according to my team of hard-working fact-checkers, Austrian daredevil and Red Bull pimp Felix Baumgartner flew to the edge of the Earth, approximately 24 miles above the ground, and jumped from his tiny capsule to earn the title of the Craziest Bastard That You’ll See This Year. Baumgartner’s leap from space featured him breaking the sound barrier and reaching a speed of mach 1.24, so naturally he reached out to some experts before that fateful October day.

Specifically, Baumgartner sat down with astronaut legend Neil Armstrong to discuss the ins and outs of what it’s like to travel in space, and by our standards, they discussed possibly the second most important thing that anyone would need to know about being in space.

Felix — who jumped from the stratosphere during the Red Bull Stratos project — was in L.A. yesterday, and revealed that he met with astronaut Neil Armstrong before his October jump … and the topic of conversation was space-logs.

According to Felix, zero-gravity dumping is a serious issue … and Neil and other astronauts agree — you just don’t drop a deuce in space unless you absolutely have to. (Via TMZ)

After our last check-in with TMZ, I’m a little disappointed in the lack of innuendo. Space logs? Boring. I expected at least one Chocolate Rain reference. As for the most important thing that they could have discussed, it’s sex. Ain’t a dude out there about to travel to space who isn’t going to wonder if some green alien babe with three boobs might find him and need his help in repopulating her planet. Any astronaut that denies that thought is lying.

Check out Baumgartner’s description of what happens if he needs to make a peepee or a poopy after the jump.

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According to the Sword Swallowers Association – which I swear is safe for work – Ian Brown is a relative newcomer to the world of sticking dangerous blades into one’s esophagus, but that doesn’t mean that he’s not trying to figuratively carve his niche. Brown only recently decided that he wanted to partially ingest weaponry, yet he already holds the United Kingdom’s record for Most Curved Swords Swallowed at Once with a whopping two. And now, as if to tell the world that he is the king of curved swords, Brown has laid claim to the world record for longest sword swallow, as he held two blades in his throat for 13 seconds. Eat your heart out, Sasha Grey.

The attempt actually broke Brown’s previous record of 8 seconds, and while you’d think that a guy would get all Little Junior Brown for having that much metal in his mouth for that long, this Brown says it ain’t no thang but a METAL POINT TOUCHING HIS DIGESTIVE TRACK.

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Austrian crazy guy Felix Baumgartner became a household name yesterday when he climbed into a little capsule with a balloon attached and flew to the edge of outer space, 24 miles above the Earth. Once he reached his desired altitude, Felix popped the door open and stepped out for some fresh air, and then he plummeted back to the ground while everyone watched via YouTube. Amazingly, his quest was a success and people cheered him on (or, you know, asked why in the blue yonder of hell would he even do this in the first place).

So what does it feel like to be 24 miles above the Earth, watching as the ground gets closer and closer? According to Felix, it ain’t no thang, bros.

“It’s like swimming without touching the water, and it’s hard because every time it turns you around you have to figure out what to do. So I was sticking my arm out then it became worse,” he said. “I had a lot of pressure in my head. But I didn’t feel like I was passing out. I was still feeling ok, I — I thought, ‘I can handle the situation.’ And I did.” (Via)

Perhaps the craziest detail of this feat is that Felix reached a max speed of 833 mph – Mach 1.24, according to dorks – while he broke the sound barrier in his cool little suit. And the whole thing lasted just 4 minutes and 20 seconds. Man, if I could last 4 minutes and 20 seconds… wait, what were we talking about?

Felix is sponsored by Red Bull in all of his craziest endeavors, and the energy drink company was obviously stoked after Felix landed safely yesterday, so its marketing and PR wizards expressed their encouragement on Facebook. Unfortunately, they didn’t bother using spell check and they made the tiniest little faux pas.

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While I was busy feeding orphaned tiger cubs with my philanthropy group, Hunks Without Borders, San Diego played host to the “Red Bull: New Year. No Limits.” daredevil showcase on New Year’s Eve. The event was a huge success for many reasons, if your thing is watching people ride motorcycles and snowmobiles really fast and far, but the main reason was that riders Robbie “Maddo” Maddison and Levi LaVallee, which is coincidentally my sister’s porn name, both set world records for the longest jumps.

Madison broke his own world record of 351 feet by jumping his motorcycle 378 feet and 9 inches, while LaVallee also broke his own world record of 361 feet by jumping his snowmobile 412 feet and 6 inches. And to make it even more extreme, wicked, rad and whatever else the hip kids are saying these days, they did it at the same time. I bet that’s not the only thing they did at the same time that night… *whispers* your mom.

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On October 1, a group of 25 adventure-loving maniacs from Switzerland set out to accomplish their most death-defying feat to date. They wanted to descend upon the Gueuroz Bridge, a 613-foot-high construction that was once the highest in all of Europe, and create a spinning jacuzzi to hang from it. That’s it, that’s their dream adventure. The Swiss are weird, man.

So what the hell goes into dangling a hot tub built for two dozen people 450-feet over a river?

Several teams had different task. Some were pre-heating the water on top of the bridge using the 3 gas burners we had used for the jaccuzzi on top of Mont Banc); others lowered all the parts necessary to built the platform 130 feet below the bridge; others still were hanging low down and assembling the platform and setting up the hot tub with its gas burner to keep the water at 100°F; while others prepared the rappelling lines for all participants; in short, everybody helped so that 4.5 hours later the first person could jump in the water with a breath taking view. Six hours later the last person came out of the water and at 6:00 pm everything was back on the trailers to get back to Lausanne where we enjoyed a fantastic raclette at Jan’s place.

(Via)

Raclette at Jan’s place and I didn’t even get a call? I thought we were cool, Swiss adventurers.

This group has actually been organizing extreme hot tub adventures for the better part of a decade, with their ultimate feat having taken place on the summit of Mont Blanc. In related news, I once jumped off my friend’s roof into his swimming pool and it was totally righteous, dude.

Check out the glorious details of this latest adventure in pictures after the jump. WARNING: Not conducive for people with fears of extreme heights or effort.

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