Blue Origin’s next flight will have VIPS aboard
Astronaut’s daughter and TV host among the passengers
Blue Origin’s next flight from West Texas will carry NASA astronaut Alan Shepard’s eldest daughter, Laura Shepard Churchley, and “Good Morning America” co-anchor and Houston native Michael Strahan.
Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket system is named after Shepard, the first NASA astronaut to fly in space. His flight on May 5, 1961, lasted 15 ½ minutes and carried Shepard 116 miles above the Earth. Now, his daughter will get a similar experience on her 10-minute flight to space and back.
“It’s kind of fun for me to say an original Shepard will fly on the New Shepard,” Shepard Churchley said in a video shared by Blue Origin. “I’m really excited to be going on a Blue Origin flight. I’m very proud of my father’s legacy.”
Strahan played football at Texas Southern University. He played 15 years in the NFL — where he was a Super Bowl champion and was inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2014 — and is currently the co-anchor of ABC’S “Good Morning America” and host of ABC’S game show “$100,000 Pyramid.” He also co-founded the production company SMAC Entertainment.
Shepard Churchley and Strahan, who are getting free rides into space, will be among six passengers launching at 9 a.m. CST Dec. 9. This will be the first New Shepard flight to have a full cabin. Previous missions have launched with four people; the capsule was designed to fit six.
The four paying customers are: Dylan Taylor, chairman and CEO of Voyager Space, the company that recently acquired Webster-based Nanoracks; investor Evan Dick; Lane Bess, the founder of Bess Ventures and Advisory, a family fund that supports technology firms; and his child Cameron. Lane and Cameron Bess will become the first parent-child pair to fly in space.
Blue Origin did not say how much these customers paid for their 10-minute ride into space.
Taylor, Dick and Lane Bess participated in the auction that Blue Origin held for a seat on its first flight into space, but none of them is the $28 million auction winner. This person still has not flown into space.
The 63-foot-tall New Shepard rocket system will launch from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One located north of Van Horn. New Shepard consists of a rocket booster and crew capsule that launch together and then separate as they approach the Kármán line 62 miles above the Earth. The capsule coasts farther above this line while the booster returns for a controlled, rocket-powered vertical landing.
Inside the spacecraft, occupants have time to admire the Earth and do a few somersaults before three drogue parachutes are deployed to slow and stabilize the capsule. These are followed by three main parachutes. Then, just before touchdown, a retrothrust system expels a cloud of air beneath the capsule.