Pilots Jim Payne and Miguel Iturmendi soar 63,776 feet in the air. That’s 12 miles high! They’re surfing on the edge of space—and breaking a world record. Two days later, they do it again. But this time they break their own record by another half a mile!

The pilots fly more than twice as high as Mt. Everest. What carries them so high in the sky? It isn’t a spaceship. It isn’t a plane. It’s a glider called the Perlan 2.

From the outside, the Perlan 2 looks similar to an airplane. It has a modern, sleek design. It carries passengers, parachutes, and plenty of scientific instruments. One thing it does not carry is an engine. How can a glider fly so high without an engine to propel it? It uses atmospheric pressure waves. Wind is the glider’s engine! The harder the wind is blowing, the higher the glider will soar. Meteorologists help the pilots safely catch wind waves. By studying wind patterns, these scientists know the best places for gliders to fly. The pilots soar in one of the windiest places on Earth: Patagonia, Argentina.