[spokeshave2]

Daredevil "Felix Baumgartner" ascended to the "edge of space" in a pressurized capsule from 128,000 feet from his balloon, free-falling for nearly four and a half minutes, breaking the sound barrier at about 1,000 mph before activating his parachute.

Tungsten rods are pointy....low air frictional drag.

[Magnum44]

That 1000 mph was all above 60k feet, by the time he was at 20k he was slowed to about 200 mph by atmospherics. 125 mph by 10k. Its just drag and physics.