Names and faces

■ Pete Davidson is heading to space. The “Saturday Night Live” star is among the six passengers on the next launch of Jeff Bezos’ space travel venture Blue Origin, scheduled for March 23, the company announced Monday. Davidson, 28, is currently dating reality star Kim Kardashian — and feuding with her ex-husband, Kanye West, who now calls himself Ye. In addition to his “Saturday Night” spot, Davidson wrote and starred in the 2020 semi-autobiographical film “The King of Staten Island.” He’ll be the third celebrity on a Blue Origin flight. William Shatner flew in October, blasting off from West Texas and reaching a height of roughly 66 miles above Earth on the 10-minute jaunt. Former NFL great and “Good Morning America” co-host Michael Strahan flew on Blue Origin’s second passenger flight in December, joining astronaut Alan Shepard’s daughter. Bezos, the founder of Amazon, flew on the company’s first passenger flight in July. The other passengers on next week’s flight are CEO and investor Marty Allen; teacher and entrepreneur Jim Kitchen; George Nield, a former NASA manager who has worked to promote commercial spaceflight; and Marc Hagle, CEO of the commercial and residential property company Tricor International, and his wife, Sharon Hagle, who founded SpaceKids Global, a nonprofit aimed at inspiring children about spaceflight. Blue Origin flights give passengers a few minutes of weightlessness above the Earth’s surface before the capsule parachutes and lands in the West Texas desert. The company has not disclosed the ticket price for paying customers.

■ A new book by the million-selling children’s author and visual artist Oliver Jeffers is a blend of art, science and adventure. “Meanwhile Back on Earth” will be published in October, according to Philomel Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers. The book was inspired by an art installation called “Our Place in Space,” a sculpture trail and scale model of the solar system that the Irish author worked on with the astrophysicist Stephen Smartt and others. It opens in the United Kingdom this spring. Jeffers likened his new story to a “long road trip” with bickering children that reminds readers, “whatever tempers were flared, there’s nothing quite like returning to the safety of home.” Jeffers’ previous books include “Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth,” “Stuck,” “Lost and Found” and “What We’ll Build: Plans for Our Together Future.”

Davidson