THE Blue Origin the spaceflight company founded by Jeff Bezos, launched its eighth manned flight on Thursday (29). The mission’s crew included Karsen Kitchen, 21, the youngest woman to cross the Kármán line — recognized as the boundary between the Earth’s atmosphere and space, about 100 km above sea level.
In addition to Kitchen, the crew included Nicolina Elrick, Rob Ferl, Eugene Grin, Dr. Eiman Jahangir and Ephraim Rabin. The flight was the 26th of the New Shepard program and launched at approximately 10:00 a.m. The flight reached its highest point at approximately 10:12 a.m., and the crew returned at approximately 10:18 a.m. The launch was made from Texas, USA.
Rob Ferl became the first NASA-funded researcher to conduct an experiment as part of a commercial suborbital space crew.
See below a video of the Blue Origin flight:
Memories that will last forever. #NS26 pic.twitter.com/bGSwGpwu0q
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) August 29, 2024
Who is Karsen Kitchen?
The youngest woman to cross the Kármán line, Karsen is a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she is expected to major in communications and astronomy. After completing her studies there, Karsen says she wants to pursue a career in the space industry.
In 2024, the student founded Orbitelle, an initiative to introduce more women to careers in the space industry. Karsen has also worked as a radio astronomy researcher at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia.
Although the Karman line is a scientifically accepted boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space, NASA (the US space agency) considers anyone who goes above 50 miles (about 80 km) to be an astronaut. Using this definition, the youngest woman to go into space is Anastatia Mayers, who took part in a Virgin Galactic flight in August 2023. Mayers was 18 when she made the trip.
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This content was originally published in See how Blue Origin’s eighth space flight went on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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