The gravelly area around the Mars Curiosity rover's landing site.
No Pressure on Felix
Why are we showing a photo from the Martian surface? You could say Baumgartner and NASA's Mars Curiosity rover will feel the same pressure.
Twice daily, meteorologists in some locations launch instrumented packages called radiosondes, lofted by balloons, to sample temperature, winds, moisture, and pressure for use by forecasters and input into numerical prediction models.
These radiosondes can ascend to heights of 115,000 feet above the surface over their two-hour ascent, before the balloon bursts. Don't worry....a tiny parachute slows the descent of the instrumented package once the balloon pops.
The point here is the atmospheric pressure at the beginning of Baumgartner's jump is roughly the same as the surface pressure measured on Mars by the Curiosity rover...about 7-8 millibars. Typical sea-level pressure at the Earth's surface is on the order of 1012 millibars.
And you thought the air was "thin" in the Rockies! Now let's dig into the temperatures and wind during the dive. Click the next button above.