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A paraplegic engineer from Germany Made history as the first person in a wheelchair to travel to space.
Michaela Benthaus set out on a dream-come-true rocket trip with five other passengers on Saturday, leaving her wheelchair behind to float away while admiring the view. Earth From on high.
She is the first wheelchair user in space, flying from West Texas after being seriously injured in a mountain bike accident seven years ago. jeff bezos‘ Company blue origin,
There was also a retired person with him spacex The executive was also born in Germany, Hans Koenigsmann, who, along with Blue Origin, helped sponsor his trip. Their ticket prices were not disclosed.
According to the company, only minor adjustments were needed to accommodate the benthos in the 10-minute space-skimming flight.
That’s because the autonomous New Shepard capsule was designed with accessibility in mind, “making it more accessible to a wider range of people than traditional space flight,” said Blue Origin’s Jake Mills, an engineer who trained the crew and assisted them on launch day.
Among Blue Origin’s previous space tourists: people with limited mobility and vision or hearing impairments, and a couple in their 90s.
For Benthaus, Blue Origin added a patient transfer board so he could pass between the capsule’s hatch and his seat.
The recovery team also had a carpet to lay down on the desert floor after touchdown, giving it immediate access to the wheelchair it had left behind at liftoff. He practiced in advance, with Koenigsmann participating in the design and testing. There was already an elevator on the launch pad to climb seven floors up to the capsule sitting atop the rocket.
Benthaus, 33, part of European Space Agencyin the graduate trainee program of NetherlandsDegrees of weightlessness experienced during the flight of a parabolic airplane houston In 2022. Less than two years later, he participated in a two-week simulated space mission poland,
“I never really thought that going on space flight would be a real option for me because even as a super healthy person, it’s so competitive, right?” she told The Associated Press before the flight.
His accident destroyed whatever hope he had. “There is no history of people with disabilities flying in space,” he said.
When Koenigsmann approached him last year about the possibility of flying on Blue Origin and experiencing more than three minutes of weightlessness on space travel, Benthaus thought there might be a misunderstanding. But that was not the case, and he signed immediately.
This is a private mission to Benthaus with no involvement from ESA, which this year has approved reserve astronaut John McFaul for a future flight. International Space StationEast British paralympics He lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident when he was a teenager.
A spinal cord injury means Benthaus cannot walk at all, unlike McFall who uses a prosthetic leg and can evacuate a space capsule by landing on his own in an emergency. Koenigsmann was designated as his emergency assistant before the flight; He was also tapped to help exit the capsule and down the short flight of stairs at the end of the flight.
Benthaus was adamant on doing as much as possible herself. Their goal is not only to make space accessible to the disabled, but also to improve accessibility on Earth.
While receiving a lot of positive feedback within “my space bubble”, she said that outsiders are not always as inclusive.
“I really hope it opens it up to people like me, just like I hope I’m just the beginning,” she said.
In addition to Koenigsmann, Benthaus shared the trip with business executives and investors and a computer scientist. He increased Blue Origin’s list of astronauts to 86.
Bezos, billionaire founder of AmazonCreated Blue Origin in 2000 and launched its first passenger space flight in 2021. The company has since delivered spacecraft into orbit cape canaveral, FloridaUsing bigger and more powerful new glen The rocket is working to send a lander to the moon.