Blue Origin launches 1st New Zealander to reach space, 5 others on latest New Shepard suborbital flight (video)
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Three world travelers, two Space Camp alums and an aerospace executive whose last name aptly matched their shared adventure traveled into space and back today (May 31), becoming the latest six people to fly with Blue Origin, the spaceflight company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos.
Mark Rocket joined Jaime Alemán, Jesse Williams, Paul Jeris, Gretchen Green and Amy Medina Jorge on board the RSS First Step — Blue Origin's first of two human-rated New Shepard capsules — for a trip above the Kármán Line, the 62-mile-high (100-kilometer) internationally recognized boundary between Earth and space.
For about three minutes, the six NS-32 crewmates experienced weightlessness and had an astronaut's-eye view of the planet.
"It was perfection," said Green soon after returning to Earth. "There are not a lot of times in your life when most of the time you're just doing your best, struggling through the hard times, enjoying the good ones, but there are very few things in life that were true perfection. And when I looked out at space and back down to the Earth, [it] was perfect."
The New Shepard launch vehicle — which included the capsule and a propulsion module, both of which are reusable — lifted off today at 8:39 a.m. CDT (9:39 a.m. EDT or 1339 GMT) from Blue Origin's Launch Site One near Van Horn in West Texas. About two and a half minutes into the flight, the booster cut off its engine and then separated, allowing the capsule to continue its coast upward into space and for it to return to Earth to make a propulsive, vertical landing on a concrete pad not far from where it launched.
The six NS-32 passengers, self-dubbed "The Pathfinders," meanwhile, reached an apogee, or maximum altitude, of 340,290 feet (104 km) above the ground, qualifying Rocket, Alemán, Williams, Jeris, Green and Jorge for Blue Origin-issued astronaut wings and their entry in the Association of Space Explorers' Registry of Worldwide Space Travelers.
The RSS First Step then descended back to Earth, using parachutes and a last-second jet of compressed air to make a soft touchdown about 10 minutes after it left Earth. Blue Origin personnel were soon on hand to inspect the vehicle, open the hatch and welcome the NS-32 crewmates home.
Mark Rocket became the first New Zealander to reach space on the mission. His connection to aerospace goes beyond his apt name and today's flight; he's currently the CEO of Kea Aerospace and previously helped lead Rocket Lab, a competing space launch company to Blue Origin that sends most of its rockets up from New Zealand.
Alemán, Williams and Jeris each traveled the world extensively before briefly leaving the planet today. An attorney from Panama, Alemán is now the first person to have visited all 193 countries recognized by the United Nations, traveled to the North and South Poles, and now, have been into space.
"It was such an incredible ride," said Alemán. "Very moving, very spiritual, even better than I ever imagined. For me, as someone who has been traveling — thank you to the gods — all my life, it is like a cherry on top of a cake."
For Williams, an entrepreneur from Canada, Saturday's flight continued his record of achieving high altitudes; he has summitted Mt. Everest and five of the other six other highest mountains across the globe. Jeris spent his childhood watching rockets take off from Florida and then travelled to more than 149 countries as he waited his own chance to fly into space.
Related stories:
— Meet the crew of Blue Origin's NS-32 space tourism mission
— New Shepard: Rocket for space tourism
— Katy Perry and Gayle King launch to space with 4 others on historic all-female Blue Origin rocket flight
Green and Jorge were cheered on during the flight from a launch viewing party at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, home to U.S. Space Camp. An experienced radiologist, Green was both an attendee and counselor at Space Camp prior to chairing the Space Camp Alumni Association, and she is now a member of the rocket center's education foundation board.
As a high school and middle school teacher in Galveston, Texas, Jorge has brought students to Space Camp, as well as attended Space Academy for Educators herself. This was her second experience being weightless, having earlier conducted student-designed experiments aboard a parabolic flight.
The NS-32 launch was Blue Origin's 12th human spaceflight since 2021 — bringing the total passenger count to 64 — and the company's 30th flight above the Kármán Line since 2015. This was the first launch since Bezos' fiancé Lauren Sánchez flew with an all-woman crew that included pop star Katy Perry and TV morning show host Gayle King in April.
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