Daughter of 1st American astronaut visits space on board Blue Origin rocket
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
VAN HORN (Texas) • Mr Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin company blasted its third private crew into space yesterday, this time including the daughter of the first American astronaut.
The stubby white spacecraft with a round tip blasted off into clear blue skies over West Texas for a roughly 11-minute trip to just beyond the internationally recognised boundary of space, 100km high. The six-member crew hooted with glee as they unbuckled to enjoy a few minutes of weightlessness.
"I've never seen anything like that," an unidentified crew member said in the live-streamed event.
The capsule quickly returned to Earth for a gentle parachute landing in the desert, kicking up a cloud of dust at touched down.
Ms Laura Shepard Churchley, whose father Alan Shepard became the first American to travel to space in 1961, flew as a guest of Blue Origin. The suborbital rocket is in fact named "New Shepard" in honour of the pioneering astronaut.
Mr Michael Strahan, an American football Hall of Famer turned TV personality, was also a guest, while there were four paying customers: space industry executive and philanthropist Dylan Taylor, investor Evan Dick, Bess Ventures founder Lane Bess and his son Cameron.
Ticket prices have not been disclosed. Alan Shepard performed a 15-minute suborbital space flight on May 5, 1961, just under a month after the Soviet Union's Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, orbiting the planet.
Mr Shepard, who died in 1998, went on to be the fifth of twelve men to have set foot on the Moon.
Previous Blue Origin flights have flown the company's billionaire founder Bezos as well as Star Trek actor William Shatner to space. Mr Bezos, who made his fortune with Amazon, envisages a future in which humanity disperses throughout the solar system, living and working in giant space colonies with artificial gravity.
The year 2021 has been significant for the space tourism sector, with Virgin Galactic also flying its founder Richard Branson to the final frontier, and Mr Elon Musk's SpaceX sending four private citizens on a three-day orbital mission for charity.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE