Laura Shepard Churchley, daughter of the first American in space Alan Shepard will be one of six passengers on Blue Origin’s next flight.
Laura and American television personality Michael Strahan, who co-host ”Good Morning America” will be guests on the voyage that will be launched on December 9, from Blue’s base in West Texas. It will be approximately a 10 minute trip to the internationally recognised boundary of space and back again.
The other four passengers are paying customers. They are space industry executive and philanthropist Dylan Taylor, investor Evan Dick, Bess Ventures founder Lane Bess and Cameron Bess.
Blue Origin’s suborbital rocket is called New Shepard in honour of NASA astronaut Alan Shepard. He performed a 15 minute space flight on May 5, 1961, just 23 days after Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin, who was the first human to visit space. Alan Shepard also set foot on the moon and passed away in 1998.