A person who uses a wheelchair blasted off into space for the first time Saturday, taking a brief ride on a Blue Origin flight.
The space company owned by American multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos launched its New Shepard suborbital mission from its site in Texas at 8:15 a.m. (2:15 p.m. GMT).
Michaela Benthaus, a German aerospace and mechatronics engineer at the European Space Agency, was among the passengers who crossed the Karman Line, the internationally recognized frontier of space, during a flight of about 10 minutes.
Benthaus suffered a spinal cord injury after a mountain biking accident and now uses a wheelchair.
“After my accident, I really, really understood how inaccessible our world still was” for people with disabilities, she said in a video released by the company.
“If we want to be an inclusive society, we need to be inclusive in all areas, not just those we like to be,” Benthaus added.
The small, fully automated rocket took off vertically, and the capsule carrying the tourists then detached in flight before gently descending towards the Texas desert, slowed by parachutes.
It was the 16th crewed flight for Blue Origin, which has for years offered space tourism flights – the price of which is not public – using its New Shepard rocket.
Dozens of people have traveled to space with Blue Origin, including pop singer Katy Perry and William Shatner, who played Star Trek’s legendary Captain Kirk.
These high-profile guests aim to maintain public interest in flights at a time when private space companies are vying for pre-eminence.
Virgin Galactic offers a similar suborbital flight experience.
But Blue Origin also aims to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the orbital flight market.
This year, Bezos’ company successfully completed two uncrewed orbital flights using its massive New Glenn rocket, significantly more powerful than New Shepard.
