{"id":191250,"date":"2025-12-14T11:16:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T11:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/191250\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T11:16:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T11:16:15","slug":"blue-origin-to-fly-first-ever-wheelchair-user-to-space-next-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/191250\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Origin to fly first-ever wheelchair user to space next week"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blue Origin aims to fly another set of space tourists to suborbital space aboard its New Shepard rocket next week.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s NS-37 mission is targeting a launch date of December 18. It will send six people to the edge of space and back, including the first-ever wheelchair user to fly to space, aerospace engineer Michaela (Michi) Benthaus.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin\u2019s latest space tourism flight to break new ground<\/p>\n

Blue Origin\u2019s space tourism trips fly groups of people to suborbital space for a roughly 10-minute window, during which they experience the wightlessness of space. The company has famously flown its own founder Jeff Bezos to space, as well as famous passengers including William Shatner and Katy Perry.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin\u2019s NS-37 will be the company\u2019s 37th overall flight of its reusable suborbital New Shepard rocket. The rocket has flown 16 space tourist flights overall, as it also flies crewless science missions.<\/p>\n

One of the NS-37 passengers, European Space Agency aerospace engineer Michaela Benthaus, has used a wheelchair since suffering a spinal cord injury as a result of a 2018 mountain-biking accident. The latest mission will, therefore, break new ground and continue Blue Origin\u2019s mission of improving accessibility to space.<\/p>\n

The spaceflight is currently scheduled to launch at around 9:30 am EST (8:30 am local time) on Dec. 18. Blue Origin will stream the launch live, with coverage typically starting around 40 minutes before liftoff.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin\u2019s NS-37 crew<\/p>\n

The crew who will fly alongside Benthaus on NS-37 are investor Joey Hyde, aerospace engineer Hans Koenigsmann, entrepreneur Neal Milch, investor Adonis Pouroulis, and ex-SpaceX employee Jason Stansell.<\/p>\n

According to a press statement<\/a>, Stansell was one of the first employees at SpaceX, having worked there between 2002 and 2021. He served as the private space company\u2019s vice president of build and flight reliability.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin also revealed the NS-37 mission patch on its website this week. According to the company, the vairous symbols on the badge represent the NS-37 crew. <\/p>\n

\"\"The NS-37 mission patch. Source: Blue Origin<\/a><\/p>\n

The DNA symbolizes the importance of science to Neal Milch, while the hippo represents Behaus\u2019 favorite animal. According to the aerospace engineer, she will take her hippo plush, which comforted her during her time in hospital, to space.<\/p>\n

The baobab tree, meanwhile, represents Adonis Pouroulis\u2019 roots. The spiral galaxy alludes to Joey Hyde\u2019s astrophysics research, while the \u201cK\u201d is in memory of Stansell\u2019s brother, Kevin.<\/p>\n

Beyond its space tourism servive, Blue Origin has been making impressive strides to challenge SpaceX as the dominant force in the private space sector. The company aims to send its Mk1 lunar lander<\/a> to the moon early next year. If all goes to plan, there is a chance Blue Origin\u2019s spacecraft could be used instead of SpaceX\u2019s Starship to fly humans back to the moon for NASA\u2019s upcoming Artemis III mission.<\/p>\n

To date, Blue Origin, which was founded by Jeff Bezos, has launched its orbital rocket New Glenn<\/a> twice. It is also reportedly looking to build orbital data centers<\/a> to meet the rising demand for energy-intensive data centers, due to AI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Blue Origin aims to fly another set of space tourists to suborbital space aboard its New Shepard rocket…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[3438,8971,61,60,79198,82,247],"class_list":{"0":"post-191250","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-aerospace","9":"tag-blue-origin","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-jeff-bezos-blue-origin","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}