Laura Shepard's 11-Min Space Joyride With Blue Origin 60 Yrs After Her Father Became 1st American In Space

Laura Shepard Churchley, whose father became the first American to travel to space in 1961, is now officially the second, second-generation 'astronaut' to travel to space.

Laura Shepard Churchley (left), daughter of first US astronaut Alan Shepard, and Television talk show host Michael Strahan lead the Blue Origin NS-19 crew as they arrive to talk to the press after their successful launch on December 11, 2021| Photo: AFP

New Delhi: Laura Shepard Churchley, the daughter of first American astronaut Alan Shepard blasted off to space on Saturday, December 11, at 8:45 am CST (8:15 pm IST), aboard Blue Origin's third crewed space flight, NS-19. The 19th New Shepard mission flew a six-member crew to space, and was suborbital, like previous crewed spaceflight missions of Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin.

Shepard Churchley, whose father became the first American to travel to space in 1961, is now officially the second, second-generation astronaut in space, preceded by Richard Garriott, who was the son of Skylab and space shuttle astronaut Owen Garriott. She is the Chair of the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation Board of Trustees, that promotes science and raises funds for college students.

Churchley, now 74, flew to space 60 years after her father launched on the first American spaceflight, Freedom 7. She was 14 years old when her father blasted off aboard the Mercury capsule. 

Churchley, who flew as a guest of Blue Origin, took up a tiny part of her father's Freedom 7 Mercury capsule, along with a few mementos that accompanied him during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971. Alan Shepard became the fifth person to walk on the moon, and the first to play golf on the lunar surface, during the Apollo 14 mission. This happened less than a month after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. 

He flew to space alone, but Churchley flew with five others on Blue Origin's first spaceflight to fill all six seats aboard the New Shepard capsule. "New Shepard", which is Blue Origin's suborbital rocket, has been named in honour of Alan Shepard.

"It's kind of fun for me to say an original Shephard will fly on the New Shepard," Shepard Churchley was quoted as saying in a video by media reports. "I'm very proud of my father's legacy, she added."

Who Are The Other Crew Members?

Apart from Churchley, the crew included Michael Strahan, Dylan Taylor, Evan Dick, Lane Bess, and Cameron Bess. 

Like Churchley, Strahan is also an honorary, non-paying guest passenger chosen by Blue Origin. He is an American television personality, journalist, and a retired National Football League star. He flew to space on Saturday with a football, and with his Super Bowl ring and his newly retired jersey No. 92. Strahan, the co-host of ABC's "Good Morning America", played all 15 seasons of his career with the New York Giants of the National Football League. With the success completion of NS-19, he became the first Black person to launch to space aboard a suborbital spaceflight.

The remaining four crew members were paying passengers. They are wealthy customers who paid undisclosed amounts for their New Shepard seats. 

Dylan Taylor is an American executive in the NewSpace industry, which refers to the emergence of the private spaceflight industry. He is the chief executive officer of Voyager Space.

Evan Dick is an investor and engineer. Lane Bess is a venture capitalist, who flew in the Blue Origin spacecraft with his 23-year-old son, Cameron Bess. According to Blue Origin, the Besses made history as the first parent-child pair to fly in space together. 

The launch of the NS-19 mission, which lasted roughly 11 minutes, marks the third space tourism flight for Blue Origin, and used the spacecraft RSS First Step, or the New Shepard 4 (NS4) to carry the crew. Blue Origin debuted its first crewed suborbital spaceflight in July, followed by the second in October, which included William Shatner, Star Trek's Captain Kirk. 

NS-19 launched from Blue Origin's base in Texas, and soared to just beyond the Karman line, the internationally recognosed boundary of space, to an altitude of 106 kilometres. The capsule descended under a canopy of parachutes to the desert floor for a safe landing.

During the mission, the six crew members experienced a few minutes of weightlessness, enjoying the vastness of space through the windows in their capsule. 

During a live broadcast of the launch by Blue Origin, the excited voices of all the crewmates could be heard.