Space jump had help from a Santa Maria man

Posted: Oct 23, 2012 4:47 PM by Cameron Polom, KSBY News
Updated: Oct 24, 2012 5:10 AM

Santa Maria Resident Involved in Space Jump

People around the world were on the edge of their seats when 42-year-old Felix Baumgartner took a daring leap, 24 miles above the earth.
It turns out, a Santa Maria man was part of the whole thing.
KSBY spoke exclusively with Dennis Fisher about what it was like to help send a man into the record books.
Dennis Fisher was given the task to film a man falling to earth from the stratosphere at nearly 900 miles per hour.
However when he was first contacted about the project, it wasn't very clear what exactly he'd be doing.
"I was quite surprised when I got a call from an energy drink company wanting to talk about long range optics."

The initial call didn't last long with few details.

"They just told me, could you photograph an object about six feet tall, eighteen inches across from 30 miles away," says Fisher.

Needless to say the question caught Fishers attention. Red Bull had him sign a non-disclosure agreement, thats when fisher was told the full details of the mission and asked if he was on board.

"I said sure," says Fisher with a chuckle.

So in 2009, Fisher set out to photograph a man sky diving at the speed of sound, from higher than any human before him.

"We wanted to be able to see what felix was doing at all times during the jump," says Fisher.

Using unique camera equipment, Fisher and his team were set to see the impossible and even more challenging, catch it on camera.

"When he exited the capsule, everything looked perfect, his jump off the step was good, he was falling straight and true, it looked great, everybody thought this was going to be a cake walk."

But it wouldnt be that easy.

"You could see he got into kind of a flat spin. and there was a lot of nervousness in everyone's voices and facial expressions," says Fisher.

At that point Fisher had gotten the shot he'd set out for, but now, all he could think about was felix's safety.
After a few minutes of sweating, Felix was finally able to control his body and come out of the spin before losing consciousness.

"When we saw the canopy open on Felix's parachute, we knew it was a success at that point, and that he was going to be ok," says Fisher.

A success thats taken this old timer to heights he never imagined.

"Being part of that whole thing was just an incredible experience, I mean what do you do now, ya know?"