On September 5, 2020, almost 800,000 fans worldwide crowded into American magician and endurance artist David Blaine's YouTube channel to witness his first major live event since 2012. Called Ascension, the stunt(特技) involved Blaine strapping himself to 52 colorful helium balloons and flying into the clear blue skies above Arizona's Great Basin Desert.
"I want to go up and become a tiny dot in the sky." the adventurer told a reporter in the New York Post before the event.
The stuntman achieved his goal by soaring almost five miles before letting go of the balloons. Blaine then dropped down at a heart-stopping speed of over a hundred miles per hour before pulling the strings on his parachute. After skillfully steering back to Earth and making a picturing-perfect landing on his feet, a delighted Blaine said, "Wow! That was awesome."
Blaine, who announced his intention to perform the stunt on August 12, 2020, originally planed to use the helium balloons to float across the Hudson River from New Jersey to New York, on August 31, 2020. However, a severe storm in New York forced him to change both the performance date and the scheduled location.
Though the stuntman made the balloon "flight" look easy, he spent years preparing for the big event. This included becoming a hot air balloonist and skydiver and conducting over 500jumps before finally attempting the daring flight.
This is not the first time Blaine has impressed the world with his endurance stunts. His previous antics(荒唐行为) include wearing a Faraday bodysuit and helmet-—both designed to conduct electricity—and getting jolted by million-volt Tesla coils for three days! The adventurer has also put himself inside a block of ice for more than an hour, stood for 35 hours above a 100-foot-high, 22-inch pillar in New York's Bryant Park, and suspended himself in a box over London's River Thames for 44 days, with no food and only 4.5 liters of water!
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