Sixty years after her father became the first American in space, Laura Shepard Churchley, daughter of Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard, rocketed out of the lower atmosphere Saturday, joining ABC TV personality Michael Strahan and four others for a thrilling 10-minute climb to space and back.
Strapped into Blue Origin’s New Shepard capsule, a spacecraft named after the first American in space, the passengers blasted off from the company’s West Texas launch site at 10:01 a.m. EST, shooting skyward atop a hydrogen-fueled single-stage rocket.
Released from the booster about two minutes and 45 seconds after blastoff, Churchley, Strahan, Evan Dick, Dylan Taylor, Lane Bess and his son Cameron were suddenly weightless, free to unstrap and float about the cabin as it continued upward on a ballistic trajectory.
The spacecraft soared to an altitude of just above 62 miles — the internationally recognized “boundary” of space — before arcing over and beginning a long plunge back to Earth and a parachute descent to touchdown.
The flight mirrored the Freedom 7 mission of Churchley’s father, who rocketed away from Cape Canaveral on May 5, 1961, on a dramatic sub-orbital spaceflight. For that flight, Alan Shepard was launched to the east and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean about 15 minutes after takeoff.
His daughter and her crewmates were fired straight up Saturday and landed just a few miles from their launchpad. Company personnel stationed nearby were on hand to help the crew members out of the capsule and welcome them back to Earth when they touched down at about 10:11 a.m. EST.
Churchley and Strahan were invited to fly by Blue Origin and its owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and as such did not purchase their seats. Bess, Taylor and Dick bought their tickets, but Blue Origin does not discuss pricing and so far, no passengers have volunteered any details.
Bezos was on hand to greet them at the landing site and present them with commemorative pins.
The New Shepard NS-19 mission was the 26th crewed sub-orbital flight since Shepard’s pioneering Mercury mission and the 7th in the ongoing competition between Blue Origin and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, which offers sub-orbital flights aboard a winged spaceplane.
Virgin has launched eight pilots and other company officials, including Branson, on four flights since December 2018 and plans to begin commercial service next year. Blue Origin has now launched three crewed flights carrying 14 passengers, including seven who bought tickets.
With Saturday’s flight, 609 individuals have now flown in space. Of that total, 36 made sub-orbital flights, including six who also flew in orbit. Forty one have flown as commercial passengers.
Given that Blue Origin’s three flights have featured Bezos, “Star Trek” actor William Shatner, 82-year-old aviation pioneer Wally Funk and now Strahan and Churchley, the company has enjoyed widespread publicity and headlines around the world.
But with tickets presumed to cost upward of $500,000 each, it remains to be seen how the PR bonanza might translate into sales for what remains a relatively high-risk venture.
