Washington: Sixty years after her father’s historic flight, she too will cross the final frontier: Laura Shepard Churchley, daughter of the first American in space Alan Shepard, will be one of six passengers on Blue Origin’s next flight.<\/p>\n
Jeff Bezos’ space company announced Tuesday its third crewed flight will launch on December 9, from Blue’s base in West Texas.<\/p>\n
Churchley and American television personality Michael Strahan, who co-hosts “Good Morning America,” are guests on the voyage — a roughly 10-minute round-trip to the internationally-recognized boundary of space, and back again.<\/p>\n
The other four are paying customers: space industry executive and philanthropist Dylan Taylor, investor Evan Dick, Bess Ventures founder Lane Bess, and Cameron Bess.<\/p>\n
Lane and Cameron Bess will become the first parent-child pair to fly in space.<\/p>\n
Blue Origin’s suborbital rocket is called New Shepard, in honor of pioneering NASA astronaut Alan Shepard.<\/p>\n
“It’s kind of fun for me to say an original Shepard will fly on the New Shepard,” said Shepard Churchley, who runs a foundation that promotes science and raises funds for college students, in a video.<\/p>\n
“I’m very proud of my father’s legacy.” Alan Shepard performed a 15-minute space flight on May 5, 1961, 23 days after the Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space.<\/p>\n
Shepard, who died in 1998, went on to be the fifth of twelve men to have set foot on the Moon.<\/p>\n
Previous Blue Origin flights have flown the company’s billionaire founder Bezos as well as Star Trek actor William Shatner to space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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