King of the daredevils: Thought plummeting 24 miles at 834mph was crazy? Just read what else Fearless Felix has been up to!

As a boy, Felix Baumgartner could hardly go past a tree without wanting to climb it. Flick through his childhood photos and more than half of them are of him at the top of one.

‘I wanted to climb everything,’ he says. ‘I loved to get to the top of a building, a house, a tree, whatever. I loved watching the world from above. The air is my element. I like to be up there as much as I can.’

And then, of course, once he had got up there, he had to get down again.

Millions of people around the world watched frozen in shock on Sunday as the Austrian skydiver stepped out of a capsule 24 miles above the Earth. It wasn’t just a question of whether he would get down alive, but also, who in his right mind would do such a thing?

Who would board a tiny capsule and float up by balloon to the edge of space before hurling himself through the air at up to 834mph, faster than the speed of sound?