Felix Baumgartner Celebrates Record Jump
COSTELLO: It is 15 minutes past the hour. Checking our top stories. A new prime minister in Libya, Ali Zeidan, has been named to the post after the country's Congress rejected a crisis plan by the former prime minister resulting in his dismissal. Zeidan has two weeks to form a new government. Former Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter will be laid to rest tomorrow. He died yesterday of complications of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma after a long battle with cancer. Specter served five terms in the U.S. Senate as a moderate Republican before switching parties at the end of his political career. He was known as one of the true political wild cards. Arlen Specter was 82. In San Diego, a dramatic standoff between a man with a rifle and police. Officers were called early Sunday morning to check out a suspicious person in an apartment building when they were confronted by an armed man wearing a tactical vest. Officers fired, hitting the man twice. The man ran, but eventually surrendered an hour later. He was taken to the hospital. Two Americans have been awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley were given the award for their work in matching different economic factors, for example. Students to schools or doctors to hospitals. The pair will share the cash price of a little more than $1 million. And if you didn't understand, that's why you don't have a Nobel Prize. All right. Think you could stand on a platform on the edge of space, look down and just jump? Take a look. This is insane, Felix Baumgartner. Man, he just jumped! Felix Baumgartner successfully made a death-defying, 24-mile jump from the edge of space. His body falling more than 800 miles per hour. CNN's Brian Todd has more on the free fall that broke the sound barrier.</s>BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With a heart-pounding hop into the stratosphere, Felix Baumgartner makes history. He jumps from 128,000 feet above the earth, 24 miles up, higher than anyone before him. During freefall, he spun for a few harrowing moments but stabilized quickly.</s>BAUMGARTNER: Started spinning so violently. Spun me around in all different directions, you know? And I was always trying to find out how to stop this. I was putting one arm out. It didn't work. And I was putting another arm out. But you're always late, because at that speed, when you travel at that speed, with that suit pressurized you don't feel the air at all.</s>TODD: In those first seconds, he broke another record. No one had ever gone through the sound barrier outside a vehicle. Baumgartner reached a top speed of more than 700 miles an hour. Well past the speed of sound. Freefall lasted 4 minutes 19 seconds before his parachute opened. That's short of the record for the longest free-fall in history. But after he safely touched down, the man known as Fearless Felix was hailed as an aerospace pioneer.</s>BAUMGARTNER: It's hard to realize what happened right now, because there are still so many emotions, you know? I had tears in my eyes when I was coming back a couple of times, because you're sitting there and you thought about that moment so many times, you know, how it would feel and how would it look like and this is way bigger than I anticipated.</s>TODD: This mission had been five years in the planning. In Baumgartner's ear during the ascent, Col. Joe Kittinger, the man whose record Baumgartner broke. Kittinger had jumped from 102,000 feet in 1960. I interviewed Baumgartner and Kittinger together earlier this year. (on camera): Are you jealous of Felix that he's going to break your record?</s>COL. JOE KITTINGER, PREVIOUS RECORD HOLDER: Oh, no. I'm delighted. I'm delighted he's going to do it. He's advancing science, and he'll do a great job.</s>TODD (voice-over): Mission leaders and space officials hope this jump will show them if astronauts, space tourists, or high altitude pilots can survive for any extended period outside a vehicle if there's a malfunction. If it held up as expected, Baumgartner's high-pressure suit could be the next generation suit for future missions. (on-camera): What will Felix Baumgartner do next? He told me that after this jump, he wants to pursue an occupation as a helicopter rescue pilot. Might be a bit of a letdown. Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.</s>COSTELLO: I think so. Thanks, Brian. If you're into e-books, expect an e-refund, rather. Consumers win, next.