WATCH: Blue Origin Completes New Shepard Spaceflight with Billionaire Founder Jeff Bezos On-Board
By Space Coast Daily // July 20, 2021
ABOVE VIDEO: On July 20, Blue Origin successfully completed New Shepard’s first human flight with four private citizens onboard.
WEST TEXAS – Billionaire founder Jeff Bezos, along with his brother and two other passengers, completed the first human spaceflight for the company on Tuesday.
“Congratulations to all of Team Blue past and present on reaching this historic moment in spaceflight history. This first astronaut crew wrote themselves into the history books of space, opening the door through which many after will pass,” said Blue Origin in a released statement.
The other two crew members included an 82-year-old Wally Funk who fulfilled her lifelong dream of achieving her first spaceflight and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen who was the first paying customer to fly on board New Shepard, marking the beginning of commercial operations for the program.
Wally’s journey to space began in the 1960s when she was the youngest graduate of the Woman in Space Program, a privately-funded project which tested female pilots for astronaut fitness. Later known as the “Mercury 13” – thirteen American women successfully underwent the same physiological and psychological screening tests as the astronauts selected by NASA for Project Mercury, but they never flew to space. Wally was the youngest graduate of this program.
She was the first female FAA inspector and first female NTSB air safety investigator. The 82-year-old pilot will now be part of the first crew on New Shepard, and the oldest person ever to fly to space.
Key Mission Stats
– Crew capsule apogee: 347,563 ft AGL / 351,210 ft MSL (105 km AGL / 107 km MSL)
– Booster apogee: 347,188 ft AGL / 350,835 ft MSL (105 km AGL / 106 km MSL)
– Elapsed mission time: 10:10
– Max ascent velocity: 2,233 mph (3,595 km/h)
Scenes from #NSFirstHumanFlight astronaut load. pic.twitter.com/L7u1ZaYn60
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) July 20, 2021
