Capsule engineering team

The cage holding the pressure sphere is the framework of the insulated fiberglass capsule that will be suspended below the balloon. Pictured here with Baumgartner (back row, left) is the capsule engineering team.

"We're not doing this as a stunt; we're doing this as a demonstration that an upper-atmospheric bailout, freefall, and re-entry are possible," Dr. Clark, the project's medical director and a former NASA crew surgeon, said in a statement. "Right now, the Space Shuttle escape system is certified to 100,000 feet. Why is that? Because Joe Kittinger went there. You've got a lot of companies that are vying for the role of being the commercial space transport provider for tourism, for upper atmospheric science, and so on. These systems, particularly during the test and development phase, need a potential escape system, which we may be able to help them provide with the knowledge we gain."