Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin house enterprise added a web page to the house historical past books at present by sending the primary wheelchair person into house.
“It was the best expertise,” stated Michaela “Michi” Benthaus, a German-born aerospace and mechatronics engineer on the European Area Company who sustained a spinal wire damage in a mountain biking accident in 2018.
Blue Origin’s suborbital New Shepard rocket ship lifted off from the corporate’s Launch Web site One in West Texas at 8:15 a.m. CT (6:15 a.m. PT).
An preliminary launch try had been known as off on Thursday as a result of the flight crew “noticed a difficulty with our built-in checks previous to flight,” Blue Origin stated. It didn’t present additional particulars concerning the problem, however at present’s countdown went off with out a hitch.
This was the thirty seventh New Shepard mission, and the sixteenth to hold people on a quick experience above the 100-kilometer (62-mile) altitude degree that marks the internationally accepted boundary of house. Eighty-six individuals, together with Bezos himself, have now flown on New Shepard. Six have gone a number of instances.
Benthaus was one among six crew members on at present’s mission, referred to as NS-37. In a 2023 interview printed by the Technical College of Munich, she stated she set her thoughts on changing into an astronaut when she was 10 years previous.
When Benthaus misplaced using her legs, she initially thought her flight into house “was by no means going to occur.” However in 2022, her hopes obtained a giant increase when she skilled a zero-G flight organized by means of AstroAccess, a mission that’s devoted to paving the best way for spacefliers with disabilities. Final yr, she was the commander of an analog house mission performed on the Lunares Analysis Station in Poland.
Now the 33-year-old has blazed a brand new path for house entry. “It’s best to by no means hand over in your goals,” she stated after at present’s flight.
Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp stated in a publish to the X social-media platform that the mission marked “one other step towards making spaceflight accessible for everybody.” Phil Joyce, Blue Origin’s senior vp for the New Shepard program, stated in a mission recap that “Michi’s flight is especially significant, demonstrating that house is for everybody, and we’re proud to assist her obtain this dream.”
Kent, Wash.-based Blue Origin has been working for a number of years to enhance accessibility at its launch facility in Texas — for instance, by including an elevator to the seven-story launch tower. A enterprise useful resource group named New Hawking, in honor of the late wheelchair-using physicist Stephen Hawking, helped prepared the ground. Blue Origin says it has beforehand flown people who find themselves onerous of listening to, have restricted mobility or limb variations, have low imaginative and prescient or are legally blind.
Blue Origin didn’t must make vital modifications within the New Shepard crew capsule for at present’s flight. However launch commentator Joel Eby stated the mission crew made “a couple of floor system enhancements,” corresponding to offering a bench that Benthaus may use to get into and out of the capsule with help from others.
Throughout their 10-minute flight, Benthaus and the remainder of the crew rose to an altitude of 106 kilometers (65.7 miles). They skilled a couple of minutes of zero-gravity and views of a curving Earth in opposition to the blackness of house. On the finish of the mission, the booster made an autonomous touchdown not removed from the launch pad, whereas the crew capsule descended to a parachute-assisted landing within the West Texas desert.
Afterward, Benthaus stated she loved the experience. “I attempted to show upside-down,” she stated.
Benthaus’ crewmates included:
- Joey Hyde, a physicist and quantitative investor who just lately retired from his profession at Citadel, a number one hedge fund. He lives in Florida together with his spouse and 5 kids.
- Hans Koenigsmann, a German-American aerospace engineer whose profession has been devoted to advancing reusable spacecraft and launch autos, most notably as an early crew member at SpaceX. Koenigsmann performed a supporting function in arranging Benthaus’ flight and infrequently helped her get round. After touchdown, Koenigsmann stated the spaceflight was “truly extra intense than I believed.”
- Neal Milch, a enterprise govt and entrepreneur who launched his profession by means of Laundrylux, a family-owned enterprise. He now serves because the chair of the Board of Trustees on the Jackson Laboratory, a nonprofit biomedical analysis institute.
- Adonis Pouroulis, an entrepreneur, investor and mining engineer with greater than 30 years of expertise within the pure sources and vitality sector. He’s the founder and chairman of Pella Assets, co-founder of Vitality Revolution Ventures, chairman of Rainbow Uncommon Earths, and the CEO of Chariot Restricted.
- Jason Stansell, a pc scientist and a self-proclaimed house nerd rooted in West Texas. He’s been watching from a front-row seat because the house business has expanded to supply alternatives for industrial spaceflight.
Along with the crew, NS-37 carried greater than 20,000 postcards submitted by college students and others by means of a program organized by the Membership for the Future, Blue Origin’s nonprofit academic basis. The featured companions for this newest batch of postcards had been UNIQLO, Arm & Hammer Baking Soda Rocket Day and Give Children the World Village.
Blue Origin usually doesn’t reveal how a lot individuals pay to take journeys on New Shepard. In some instances, crew members have flown as invited visitors. On the opposite finish of the spectrum, crypto entrepreneur Justin Solar paid $28 million for a ticket in a extensively publicized public sale.
The suborbital house program’s earlier milestones embrace flying the world’s oldest spaceflier (former check pilot Ed Dwight, who was 90 when he rode on New Shepard final yr); the world’s youngest spaceflier (Oliver Daemen, who was 18 when he flew with Bezos and two others in 2021). and the primary married couple to achieve the ultimate frontier collectively on a industrial spaceship (Marc and Sharon Hagle in 2022).
Replace for 8:40 a.m. PT: NASA’s new administrator, Jared Isaacman, congratulated Blue Origin and the NS-37 crew, with particular shout-outs for Koenigsmann and Benthaus:
Congrats to the Blue Origin crew and the NS-37 crew–together with @HansKoenigsmann one of many nice engineers of this new period. His work enabled so many to achieve house–I’m glad he lastly made the journey himself. pic.twitter.com/hgtKRSZpPq
— Jared Isaacman (@rookisaacman) December 20, 2025
That is an up to date model of a report first printed on Dec. 18.
