The advice from master to student over the past three years has been simple: Be prepared. Know what to do and how to do it. 
 
 Felix Baumgartner, right, of Austria, shares a laugh with Col. Joe Kittinger, USAF retired, after successfully jumping from a space capsule lifted by a helium balloon at a height of just over 128,000... (Associated Press) 
 
 Felix Baumgartner, of Austria, gestures prior to speaking with the media after successfully jumping from a space capsule lifted by a helium balloon at a height of just over 128,000 feet above the Earth's... (Associated Press) 
 
 "Fearless Felix" Baumgartner heeded Joe Kittinger's advice and followed it. 
 
 In the desert surrounding Roswell, N.M., on Sunday, Baumgartner broke Kittinger's world record for the highest and fastest free fall. 
 
 Baumgartner jumped from 128,100 feet, or about 24 miles, for the highest skydive _ more than four miles higher than Kittinger's jump in 1960, which was from 102,800 feet or 19.5 miles. He broke the sound barrier and more, achieving Mach 1.24. 
 
 A brief comparison of the two men and their endeavors: 
 
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 Baumgartner is 43 and a former Austrian military parachutist with more than 2,500 jumps behind him. 
 
 Kittinger was 32 and a captain in the U.S. Air Force. He's now 84 and lives near Orlando, Fla. His record jump was his 33rd skydive. 
 
 Baumgartner accelerated to 833.9 mph to break the sound barrier, or Mach 1. He went beyond that, achieving Mach 1.24, according to preliminary data that must be confirmed with international aeronautic authorities. Kittinger was clocked at a maximum 614 mph, equivalent at that altitude to Mach 0.9. 
 
 Baumgartner ascended in a pressurized capsule hoisted by a 30 million-cubic-foot helium balloon, 335 feet tall when inflated. Kittinger rode an open, unpressurized gondola that was lifted by a 3 million-cubic-foot balloon, 184 feet tall when inflated. 
 
 Baumgartner wore a custom-made full-pressure suit. Kittinger wore an Air Force standard partial-pressure suit. He was initially claustrophobic in his suit and had counseling to overcome his anxiety. 
 
 "When you close your visor, it's your own little world. You don't hear anything from the outside anymore. The only thing that you hear is yourself breathing all the time. Then you start thinking about bad things and it's getting worse in a very short amount of time," Baumgartner said days before the jump. "Your brain sometimes does fancy things." 
 
 Kittinger, by contrast, was a test pilot and used to pressure suits. In 1972, his fighter jet was shot down and he ended up a Vietnam POW, surviving 11 months of torture at the "Hanoi Hilton" prison. In the next cell was Sen. John McCain. 
 
 Kittinger's Project Excelsior was Air Force. Baumgartner's Red Bull Stratos effort is sponsored by the energy drink maker. 
 
 Both men had two test jumps before the grand finale. 
 
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 Online: 
 
 Red Bull Stratos: http://www.redbullstratos.com 
 
 National Museum of the U.S. Air Force: http://tinyurl.com/2dsnn6 ||||| Felix Baumgartner's 24-mile (38.6-kilometer) skydive from the stratosphere was a boon for social networks as millions of users shared in the wonder of the moment from their computers, tablets and phones. 
 
 Here's a look at how the world, through the Internet, watched the jump. 
 
 YOUTUBE: 
 
 As Baumgartner ascended in the balloon, so did the number of viewers watching YouTube's live stream of the event. Its popularity grew as the moment of the jump drew closer, as people kept sharing links with each other on Twitter and Facebook and websites embedded the stream. 
 
 Nearly 7.3 million viewers were watching as Baumgartner sat on the edge of the capsule, moments before the jump. 
 
 In the United States, the opportunity to watch the jump on TV was limited to the Discovery Channel, though more than 40 television networks in 50 total countries carried the live feed, organizers said. It was streamed by more than 130 digital outlets. 
 
 FACEBOOK: 
 
 After Baumgartner landed, sponsor Red Bull posted a picture of the daredevil on his knees to Facebook. In less than 40 minutes, the picture was shared more than 29,000 times and generated nearly 216,000 likes and more than 10,000 comments. Immediately after the jump, Red Bull solicited questions for Baumgartner through Facebook and Twitter, promising to answer three at a post-jump news conference. 
 
 TWITTER: 
 
 During the jump and the moments after Baumgartner safely landed, half the worldwide trending topics on Twitter had something to do with the jump _ pushing past tweets about Justin Bieber and seven National Football League games being played at the same time. Celebrities of all kinds weighed in, including athletes, actors and high-profile corporate executives. 
 
 "It's pretty amazing that I can watch, live on my computer, a man riding a balloon to the edge of space so he can jump out of it. (hashtag)TheFuture," tweeted Wil Wheaton, who acted in the iconic science-fiction series "Star Trek: The Next Generation." 
 
 "Felix Baumgartner is a boss," tweeted Jozy Altidore, a soccer player for the U.S. men's national team. 
 
 REDDIT: 
 
 Two threads related to the jump made the front page of Reddit. Users quickly upvoted a request for Baumgartner to participate in an "Ask Me Anything" on the site, where users pepper someone on the site with questions about anything they want. President Barack Obama held court as the subject of a similar thread in August. 
 
 Nearly 29,000 users weighed in on a separate thread about the jump itself, voting it up and down and robustly commenting. 
 
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 Oskar Garcia can be reached on Twitter at http://twitter.com/oskargarcia .
– Jumping to Earth from 24 miles up—a feat that secured him a place in the annals of history as the first human to break the sound barrier on his own—"was harder than I expected," said Felix Baumgartner after yesterday's record-breaking skydive. Early in the jump, he started spinning out of control—a problem that also almost killed the last altitude and speed record-holder Joe Kittinger 50 years ago—but Baumgartner was able to stabilize when the air got thicker, and the rest of his jump went smoothly, including the landing in the New Mexico desert. "At a certain RPM, there’s only one way for blood to leave your body, and that’s through your eyeballs," Baumgartner explained after the jump. "That means you’re dead. That was what we feared most." "Trust me, when you stand up there on top of the world, you become so humble," he continued. "It’s not about breaking records anymore. It’s not about getting scientific data. It’s all about coming home." Kittinger himself guided Baumgartner from mission control, the New York Times notes. "He demonstrated that a man could survive in an extremely high altitude escape situation," Kittinger said after the jump. "Future astronauts will wear the spacesuit that Felix test-jumped today." The 4-minute, 20-second jump was also good news for social media, the AP reports—nearly 7.3 million viewers watched it live on YouTube; a picture of Baumgartner after landing was shared more than 29,000 times in less than 40 minutes on Facebook; and tweets about the jump surpassed even those about Justin Bieber. The AP also has a comparison of Baumgartner's and Kittinger's history-making jumps.