If you’ve ever felt that skydiving was a little crazy, read this: Felix Baumgartner, an Austrian adventurer, is planning the highest skydive of all time by jumping from 120,000ft, the very edge of space. He will also be the first to break the sound barrier without the aid of a machine, the effects of which are completely uncertain.

This is all possible with a special suit, which will give him oxygen and maintain air pressure. If his suit fails, the moisture around his mouth and eyes would start to boil. His blood would also start to boil, a potentially lethal situation. If he doesn’t maintain control and starts spinning wildly, he may lose consciousness.

He and his suit will ascend into the stratosphere inside a capsule that is lifted by a 450ft balloon, from which he will jump once it reaches more than 3 times the height of commercial aircraft. He and his team have spent 5 years preparing for his jump and have been aided by Joe Kittinger, who holds the record for the highest freefall and who experienced intense swelling in his hand because his suit malfunctioned.

Felix Baumgartner is undertaking this project because he likes to challenge himself and has a lot of experience in performing skydiving stunts. Nobody knows when the record breaking attempt will take place, but it may take place sometime in 2012.