Mondo Knows Facts

A balloon carried a person to 41 kilometres up

Alan Eustace jumped from a balloon above New Mexico in October 2014 Eustace ascended in a helium balloon to 41,419 metres on 24 October 2014, suspended in a pressure suit rather than enclosed in a capsule. He then cut himself free and fell for about four and a half minutes before his parachute opened. Altitude was tracked by radar and GPS and ratified by the FAI as the highest manned balloon flight. It sits in Mondo's records & extremes collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

Federation Aeronautique Internationale

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Tags: balloons, altitude, new-mexico

A balloon carried a person to 41 kilometres up: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?
Alan Eustace jumped from a balloon above New Mexico in October 2014. The figure is taken from Federation Aeronautique Internationale, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a records & extremes fact?
Yes. It sits on the Records & Extremes shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?
The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.