I just kept hearing space travel isn’t for you
A 26-year-old electrical and hardware engineer will become the first Mexican-born woman in space when she joins a diverse international crew for a
10-minute flight launched by Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin.
Growing up in Guadalajara, Mexico, Katya Echazarreta was encouraged to abandon her dreams of travelling to space.
“Everyone around me - family, friends, teachers - I just kept hearing the same thing: That’s not for you,” she said.
Ms Echazarreta will prove them wrong today when she boards the fifth passenger flight by the Amazon founder’s space travel venture.
She and five others, including Victor Correa Hespanha, the second Brazilian to fly to space, will blast off from Texas atop a New Shepard rocket for a 10-minute flight.
The flight should reach an altitude of 66 miles before parachuting into the desert.
Ms Echazarreta, whose flight is sponsored by the non-profit Space for Humanity, will be the first Mexican-born woman to fly to space. She was chosen from more than 7,000 applicants.
The flight comes as Blue Origin competes with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Sir Richard
Branson’s Virgin Galactic for space tourism dollars and efforts aimed to increase diversity in space travel, which has long been dominated by white men.
Of the more than 600 people who have been to space since 1961, fewer than 80 have been women and fewer than three dozen have been black, indigenous or Latino. In April, Nasa’s Jessica Watkins became the first black woman assigned a long-duration mission on the International Space Station.