The Red Bull Stratos Mission, which saw Felix Baumgartner skydive from the edge of space, reached over eight million concurrent views on its YouTube live stream at its peak.
YouTube's sports partnerships manager, Tim Katz, says: "We congratulate Felix Baumgartner and the entire Red Bull Stratos team for their successful mission, and for creating a live stream with the most concurrent views ever on YouTube."
Baumgartner aimed to break 50-year-old records, and break new ground in medical and scientific research. The mission was the culmination of five years of preparation, and Baumgartner now holds the world record for the highest jump from a platform (128 100 feet), longest distance free fall (119 846 feet) and maximum vertical velocity (833.9mph or Mach 1.24).
Baumgartner also set records for the highest freefall and highest manned balloon flight; but with a total freefall time of four minutes 19 seconds, he did not break the record set by his mentor, Colonel Joe Kittinger.
According to the Red Bull Stratos Web site, when the figures are certified, Baumgartner will be the first man to have broken the speed of sound in freefall.
The two-hour live stream followed Baumgartner as he ascended to the edge of the stratosphere in a specially designed capsule attached to a giant helium balloon, prepared for the jump and plummeted back to Earth. Before jumping, Baumgartner saluted the millions of people watching from around the world, and said: "I know the whole world is watching right now and I wish the world could see what I can see. Sometimes you have to go up really high to understand how small you really are."
A photo posted by sponsor Red Bull, of Baumgartner on his knees celebrating the successful jump shortly after landing, was shared over 29 000 times and generated over 200 000 likes and over 10 000 comments on Facebook in just 40 minutes.
Speaking at a press conference after the jump, Baumgartner said: "When I was standing there on top of the world, so humble, you are not thinking about breaking records. I was thinking about coming back alive."
Baumgartner said he almost aborted the mission twice. The first time was in the capsule when his visor became fogged up. He said: "At a certain time it looked like this was going to be mission abort. On our checklist of things we had this as a mission abort; if you cannot see anything, you cannot leave the capsule."
At the beginning of his fall, Baumgartner went into an uncontrollable spin and again came close to aborting the mission by nearly opting to press the button that would deploy the parachute and stop both the spin and the record attempt.
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