The San Diego Air & Space Museum is remembering former record-setting sky diver Felix Baumgartner of the Red Bull Stratos Project, who was inducted into the prestigious International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the Museum in 2013. Baumgartner, an Austrian base jumper and skydiver renowned for his record-breaking jump from the stratosphere, died while paragliding in Italy on July 17, 2025. He was 56.

Since 1963, the International Air & Space Hall of Fame has honored the world’s most significant pilots, crew members, visionaries, inventors, aerospace engineers, business leaders, preservationists, designers and space explorers. Baumgartner and the Red Bull Stratos Project entered the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum in 2013.

“Felix Baumgartner and the Red Bull Stratos Project expanded the limits of human skydiving capabilities and personified the pioneering and innovative spirit of all of the honorees of the International Air & Space Hall of Fame,” said Jim Kidrick, President & CEO of the San Diego Air & Space Museum. “He became the first human being to break the sound barrier without any form of an engine! His incredible supersonic free fall and the magnificent achievements of the entire Red Bull Stratos Project are why they will be remembered forever in the prestigious International Air & Space Hall of Fame.”

Red Bull is one of the most successful energy drink companies in the world and has always been popular with athletes and associated with extreme sports. In 2010, the company teamed up with Felix Baumgartner to prepare for the highest skydive ever attempted. With a mission to transcend human limits, Red Bull Stratos brought together the world’s leading minds in aerospace medicine, engineering, pressure suit development, capsule creation, and balloon fabrication.

On October 14, 2012, Baumgartner broke three world records during his supersonic free-fall from 24 miles up in the stratosphere over New Mexico, and became the first human to break the sound barrier without any form of engine power. This magnificent feat could not have taken place without the assistance of retired Air Force Colonel Joe Kittinger, who previously held the world record for the highest parachute jump in August 1960 from 102,800 feet and served as Baumgartner’s mentor and capsule communicator. He was also the first person to make a solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in a gas balloon. Serving as a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War, he achieved an aerial kill of a North Vietnamese jet fighter and was later shot down himself, spending 11 months as a prisoner of war in a North Vietnamese prison. Art Thompson, the Technical Project Director and engineer for the Red Bull Stratos capsule, assembled an award-winning team that made possible Felix Baumgartner’s record-breaking stratospheric skydive.

The International Air & Space Hall of Fame is the most prestigious induction of its kind in the world and is composed of hundreds of air and space pioneers, engineers, inventors and innovators, along with adventurers, scientists and industry leaders. NASA Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts and Russian cosmonauts are honored in the Hall, as well as famous legends such as the Wright Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, Neil Armstrong and Amelia Earhart. Notable inductees also include Buzz Aldrin, Igor Sikorsky, Wernher von Braun, Jack Northrop, Jackie Cochran, William Boeing, Sr., Reuben H. Fleet, Glenn Curtiss, Walter Zable Sr., Fran Bera, Wally Schirra, Bill Anders, Jim Lovell, T. Claude Ryan, Jimmy Doolittle, Bob Hoover, Ellen Ochoa, Peggy Whitson, Linden Blue, Patty Wagstaff, and many more.

See the following link: http://sandiegoairandspace.org/exhibits/online-exhibit-page/international-air-space-hall-of-fame