By now, we’ve all seen the inspiring footage of Felix Baumgartner jumping off his space balloon, plunging through the stratosphere at the speed of sound, and landing safely in a field in New Mexico.
Equally inspiring but less widely seen is this footage of a lego Baumgartner jumping off a lego balloon from maybe half a kilometer in the air, plunging toward the ground at maybe 70km/h, and landing safely (albeit face first) on the concrete. For an object that’s only a centimeter tall, falling 500 meters is a stunning, bewildering feat. The fact that he was somehow able to deploy his parachute without having movable arms makes the whole thing even more impressive.
But before we let it eclipse the real Baumgartner’s accomplishment, let’s keep things in perspective: The only way this thing could have backfired for lego Baumgartner is if he landed in a microwave or something.
