The on-again-off-again Felix Baumgartner space jump is on again, according to statements from Red Bull and various media outlets including BBC .

Baumgartner is, as you may recall, an Austrian daredevil with a penchant for jumping off stuff that he really shouldn’t, but he does anyway, and it makes for some sick video. That’s why he’s awesome. On his list of de-virginized BASE Jumps, Petronas Towers, Taipei 101 and the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio De Janeiro. God bless you Felix Baumgartner.

But it’s his next jump, planned for several years now, that I blogged about a few years ago, that’s really gonna drop your jaw. This time he’s setting the record for a free fall – he’s jumping from a location up, WAAAYYYY up, 36 kilometres above the Earth, in what’s been dubbed ‘The Space Jump’.

If he’s successful, the jump will eclipse the previous record, set by Joe Kittinger in 1960, in which Kittinger did a 31 kilometer free-fall. Cojones the size of watermelons that man has.

Baumgartner’s Space Jump, assuming it happens, will have him falling so fast he’ll actually break the sound barrier. That will be the first time man has achieved that speed without assistance from a machine.

BBC and National Geographic are working on the documentary. Will keep an eye on this one…

Watch the video, and hear Joe Kittinger as he speaks of his 50 year old record and passing the torch, so to speak. I still think it’s touching everytime this man talks about working up the courage to set such a crazy record, and how he “said a little prayer” before he jumped.

I thought I’d seen it all.  I’ve blogged about wing-suits, kissing sharks, glacier surfing and plenty other neat ways to get your rocks off.  But this one takes the cake.

I’ve only seen this attempted once before, in that 1991 classic Point Break, aka the best movie of all time.  Evidently Travis Pastrana felt a little boxed in with his life, and felt like taking a plane, quaffing a beer, and jumping out of said plane…without a parachute.

For all us adrenaline monkeys, Travis Pastrana, no matter what he does for the rest of his life, has achieved the level of steel cojones.  Brass balls.  But the best part?  He chugs a beer first.  Actually, I think it’s a Red Bull, but I’m pretending it’s a beer.

Travis Pastrana, you’re my new personal hero.

Get ready for some air time!  This video has some seriously amazing, if not demented jumping, from planes, ramps and things that make you go Boom! when you land.  You might recognize some of these jumps from some of my earlier blog posts.  There’s a bit of corporate plugging going on in a few stunts (drink Red Bull!), but you have to give it to them, they know how to put on a good stunt.  Jumps five and two are my favourite.  But number one is definitely justified as being the bravest, most hardcore jump of all time.  And for that, I tip my hat to Joe Kittinger.

On August 16, 1960, American Air Force Captain Joseph Kittinger boarded a helium balloon at Wright Field, Ohio. For the next hour and 31 minutes, Kittinger ascended into the stratosphere. Then, at 102,800 feet, or 31,333 metres for us metric system devotees, he stepped OUT of the balloon gondola. What transpired for the next 13 minutes and 45 seconds was beyond awe-inspiring. Kittinger fell without a parachute for 4 minutes and 31 seconds and reached a maximum speed of 614 miles an hour plummeting to Earth. Suffice to say, this is the highest skydive in history, and the record has stood for 50 years. Now Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner, of BASE Jumping Christ the Redeemer fame, wants to break the record, some time within the year, in a highly publicized jump that would see him take a leap of faith from 23 miles above planet Earth. I hope he makes it, but I have to nod in respect to Kittinger first. A man who jumps from 20 miles in the air and lives to tell about it has cojones big enough to fit in a dump truck, and while records are made to be broken, Joe Kittinger will always be remembered as the first man to jump from space.

Leave it to them crazy cats at Red Bull to come up with the sickest, most hardcore stunts ever conceived by someone on, well, Red Bull.  This one’s beyond hardcore.  In this video, Ueli Gegenschatz jumps from a moving truck on the Ataturk aqueduct and dives straight into oblivion.  While there’s obviously a corporate plug going on here, you gotta admit that the cojones are thicker than soup in the production of this video.  This guy is bad, bad, bad!