San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Shepard, Strahan fly on Blue Origin
The daughter of the namesake of Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket flew to space Saturday.
Laura Shepard Churchley, the eldest daughter of former NASA astronaut Alan Shepard, was one of six people who took a 10minute ride to space and back. Blue Origin’s third crewed flight from West Texas also carried Houston native and Pro Football Hall of Famer Michael Strahan.
“TOUCHDOWN has a new meaning now!!!” Strahan tweeted after landing.
Blue Origin named its suborbital rocket system after Shepard, the first American to go to space, because the company’s ride is similar to his first mission: Shepard’s nearly 15 ½-minute flight traveled 116 miles above the Earth and Blue Origin’s 10-minute flight soared roughly 66 miles above the Earth. Neither orbited the planet.
“I thought about Daddy coming down and thought,
gosh he didn’t even get to enjoy any of what I’m getting to enjoy,“Shepard Churchley said following touchdown. “He was working. He had to do it himself. I went up for the ride!”
Shepard Churchley took along a tiny piece of his Freedom 7 capsule as well as mementos from his Apollo 14 moonshot. She also packed some golf balls; her dad hit a couple on the lunar surface. Strahan took along his Super Bowl ring and retired New York Giants jersey No. 92. Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos stashed a football on board that will go to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Saturday was the first Blue Origin mission to have a full cabin with six passengers. Previous missions held four people.
Riding with Shepard Churchley and Strahan, who got free rides, were paying customers 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 Bess. The Besses are the first parentchild pair to fly in space together.
The 63-foot-tall reusable New Shepard rocket system launched from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One, located north of Van Horn, around 9 a.m. 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 had time to admire the Earth before three drogue parachutes were deployed to slow and stabilize the capsule. These were followed by three main parachutes. Then, just before touchdown, a retro-thrust system expelled a cloud of air beneath the capsule.
After those inside the capsule landed back on Earth, they emerged to cheers and hugs, with people excitedly asking them about their experience. They were then presented with their astronaut wings.
As soon as he emerged from the capsule, Strahan said he wanted to go again. But Bezos joked he’d have to buy his own ticket next time.
In a video he posted later, Strahan called the experience surreal and unbelievable: “Wow! That’s all I can say. Wow!”
Shepard Churchley has spent her life promoting what her father started when he became the first American in space and the fifth person to walk on the moon. She currently serves as chair of the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation Board of Trustees, a group that raises funds for college students and provides mentoring to scholars pursuing careers and research in STEM.
Strahan was born in Houston, spent most of his youth in Germany where his father was stationed in the U.S. Army and then returned to Houston for a portion of high school, where he played football at Westbury High School. He was recruited by Texas Southern University and then the NFL, where he played 15 seasons and became a Super Bowl champion.
Strahan was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2014.
He 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.