It’s been nearly two years since Blue Origin flew humans to space on its New Shepard rocket, but the next six passengers are set to go Sunday as the Jeff Bezos company gets back to the business of space tourism.
The six passengers include former Air Force Capt. Ed Dwight, the first Black astronaut candidate in the 1960s. Others flying are venture capitalist Mason Angel, French microbrewery founder Sylvain Chiron, software engineer and entrepreneur Kenneth Hess, world explorer and retired CPA Carol Schaller, and pilot and holistic wellness entrepreneur Gopi Thotakura, a graduate of Daytona Beach’s Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Dwight was chosen by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to enter an Air Force flight training program that was one of the ways to join NASA’s astronaut corps, but despite graduating from the Aerospace Research Pilot School, he was not chosen, and retired from military service in 1966. Now 90, he has since become a sculptor with Black history the main theme among his subjects with more than 130 public installations throughout the U.S. and Canada.
The price to fly with Blue Origin has not been made public, but Dwight’s seat is being sponsored by nonprofit Space for Humanity, which has sent up several previous New Shepard passengers, as well as contributions from the Jaison and Jamie Robinson Foundation.
The six will climb aboard the small capsule and take off on a short suborbital trip to space from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in West Texas on what will be New Shepard’s 25th flight since 2005. The launch window for the NS-25 mission opens at 9:30 a.m. EDT Sunday with live stream coverage on BlueOrigin.com starting about 40 minutes before liftoff.
Flights last a little more than 10 minutes with passengers able to unstrap and enjoy a few minutes of weightlessness before a return to Earth with a parachute-assisted landing just a few miles from the launch site.
The rocket last flew on a crewed mission in August 2022, but a month later the first stage booster on an uncrewed flight suffered an explosion.
The capsule jettisoned as designed and made a safe landing, but the rocket was grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration. The booster on that flight had never been used for human launches, but Blue Origin’s investigation into the incident led to changes in booster design.
New Shepard returned to flight last December, flying once again on an uncrewed mission.