Keller @ Large: Record Skydive A Teachable Moment For Us

BOSTON (CBS) - If you missed the world-record skydive yesterday, I recommend - especially if you have a child in your household - taking a moment later today to sit with them and watch it on YouTube.

It will give you plenty of meaningful topics to discuss.

Listen to Jon's commentary:

For starters, it's a moment when we see mankind doing what we do best – expanding the boundaries of scientific knowledge by pushing the envelope of experimentation and risk.

The experts say Felix Baumgartner's jump will provide valuable information about the human body and how it can be better prepared to survive exposure to the upper atmosphere.

Why does that matter?

Ask Jonathan Clark, the medical director of the team behind Baumgartner. His wife was one of the seven Shuttle Columbia crew members who died when the shuttle broke up on re-entry in 2003.

Baumgartner's jump is a story of teamwork and shared inter-generational wisdom. He beat the 52-year-old skydiving record of Air Force Col. Joe Kittinger, who was his mentor on this project, talking to him through every stage of the jump.

This privately-funded event was also a story of the private sector in action, filling a research role that government once filled but no longer does.

And most of all, it was a study in personal courage.

USA Today reports Baumgartner suffered panic attacks while training in his spacesuit, fears a psychologist helped him overcome by monitoring his pulse during test jumps.

"I'd put on a helmet and tell him, from one to 10, how panicked I felt," says Baumgartner. "And in the end, no matter what the number was, he told me my pulse rate never changed. So it was all in my head."

Plenty of life-lesson material in there, don't you think?

We can do most anything we set our minds to, if we work together and rely on one another. We can and should always try to seek knowledge. And any financial obstacles we face or fears we have can be dealt with if we have the will to do so.

I know they were probably busy doing debate prep, but I hope Candidates Obama and Romney were taking notes.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.