Pete Davidson was initially slated to be the next flashy name to fly aboard the suborbital space tourism rocket developed by Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin, after the commercial space company launched several other famous faces on its previous flights.
But the comedian abruptly backed out of the mission after a schedule change delayed his flight by a week.
His seat was given to longtime company employee Gary Lai, the chief architect of the very rocket he will fly on. Lai will be joined by five paying customers who have had the wherewithal to dole out an undisclosed sum for one of the coveted crew capsule seats.
Liftoff of the New Shepard launch vehicle was scheduled for Tuesday morning, but the company said it expects strong winds at its facility near Van Horn, Texas.
Blue Origin is now targeting this Thursday (31) at 8:30 am CT (Central US Time). Those interested in capturing the action — which should look a lot like Blue Origin’s previous three suborbital rides — can tune in to the company’s webcast this morning.
The flight will be brief. It’s an approximately 10-minute up-and-down tour that will begin with the rocket cranking its engines and reaching more than three times the speed of sound as it propels the crew capsule more than 60 miles above Earth’s surface.
Passengers will experience a few minutes of weightlessness and sweeping views of the planet below, before gravity drags them back to Earth and the capsule parachutes into place to ensure a smooth landing near the launch site.
It’s unclear how much paying customers for this mission paid, and Blue Origin hasn’t released a fixed ticket price.
But we do know that at least one potential passenger won an auction for a ticket to fly alongside Bezos last year for a staggering $28 million. (That passenger, however, didn’t end up flying Bezos’s flight.)
We also know that another player in the suborbital space tourism game, Virgin Galactic, is selling its seats for $450,000 each. Whether passengers paid a few hundred thousand dollars or a few million, it’s safe to say these missions won’t be affordable for the average consumer anytime soon.
Here’s a look at some of the upcoming space tourists that will launch on the Blue Origin mission this Thursday.
Gary Lai
Lai, the only non-paying passenger on Thursday’s suborbital flight, was among Blue Origin’s first 20 employees after joining the company in 2004.
He has been credited as the “architect of the New Shepard system” and holds several patents related to the launch vehicle, according to a statement from Blue Origin. During his time as a graduate student at Cornell University, Lai studied under the prolific astronomer Carl Sagan.
Lai will be the second Asian-American passenger to travel to the edge of space on a suborbital spaceflight, after Virgin Galactic employee and Indian-American aeronautical engineer Sirisha Bandla joined Richard Branson on his spaceflight last year.
The industry is grappling with social issues because, until now, it has only been widely accessible to whites, men and the wealthy.
Marty Allen
Marty Allen is an angel investor and former chief executive of a party supply store and cabinet design company.
The Pennsylvania native now lives in California. In an interview with Philadelphia-based local news station WPVI-TV, Allen said visiting the space has been a dream of his since childhood.
“I’ve loved aviation since I was a kid,” he said. “I used to build rockets and play with them as a kid. I always dreamed of space.”
Allen added that each passenger was given a small bag to take aboard the suborbital trip and revealed that he is carrying a 60ft by 10ft American flag to take on the trip (about 18m by 3m).
“I’m going to take this with me and when I get back home I’m going to put up a really big flagpole on my property and fly this flag,” Allen told the local news agency.
Jim Kitchen
Jim Kitchen is an entrepreneur and faculty member at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, where he teaches classes on starting “social entrepreneurial ventures and fundraising,” according to his university biography.
Avid traveler who documents his travels on Instagram, Kitchen has visited all 193 UN member countries. But like the other passengers, he says visiting space is a long-time dream.
“One of my earliest childhood memories was sitting on my mom’s lap on the beach in Florida and watching an Apollo mission launch, just looking up and watching that rocket go into space,” Kitchen said in an interview with a publication by UNC business school.
Although he’s seen much of Earth from below, he said he’s really excited to see the planet from above.
“Given everything that’s going on in the world right now, seeing this borderless planet from space is very important to me,” Kitchen said.
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George Nield
George Nield is the president and founder of Commercial Space Technologies, a company that aims to promote and facilitate commercial space activities.
Previously, he worked as an associate administrator for the Office of the Federal Aviation Administration of Commercial Space Transport under Blue Origin, where he was responsible for licensing and regulating commercial launch activities.
Although he spent much of his career on the regulatory side of the space tourism industry, Nield expressed excitement at finally being able to experience the “magic” of the journey firsthand.
“Some people have asked me why I would want to do a suborbital spaceflight,” he wrote in a March 14 tweet. “Here’s my answer: see the black sky and the curvature of the Earth, and experience the ‘magic’ of weightlessness.”
Sharon Hagle
Sharon Hagle will take off alongside her husband, Marc Hagle, on Thursday’s flight – making them the first couple to fly together on a commercial spaceflight.
She is the founder of SpaceKids Global, a non-profit organization that works to encourage students – and especially girls – to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, art and math (so-called STEAM programs). The organization offers national essay competitions and gives lectures in schools with the aim of inspiring the next generation to pursue careers in the space industry.
Sharon Hagle is aiming to experience spaceflight from all three companies currently operating in the arena: Blue Origin, SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, according to her SpaceKids global biography.
Marc Hagle
Marc Hagle is the chief executive officer of a residential and commercial property development company based in the Orlando, Florida area.
About fifteen years ago, Hagles booked tickets to fly a future Virgin Galactic flight after celebrating a wedding anniversary with a near-weightless experience aboard a Zero Gravity Corp. Today.
Now that the couple’s long-held dream of experiencing spaceflight is coming to fruition, Marc Hagle told Florida Today: “I can’t even begin to say how excited we are.”
“We are very honored to be able to do so,” he added. “And we’re having a lot of fun with it.”
Source: CNN Brasil
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