Blue Origin will send television star Michael Strahan and a host of other clients into space, Jeff Bezos’ company announced.
Next month, the host of Good morning america He will travel with Laura Shepard Churchley, daughter of Alan Shepard, the first American to reach space. They will be “guests of honor,” so they won’t pay the high prices Bezos’s company charges for their excursions to the edge of the atmosphere.
Strahan announced his participation in GMA, where he said that Blue Origin had approached him to ask if he wanted to participate. He noted that he had covered for Good morning america the previous launch, in which Bezos himself traveled on the rocket.
Strahan began his career as a football player, before going on to host NFL coverage. He then became a presenter for Good morning americaas well as host of the game show The $ 100,000 pyramid.
The pair of guests will be joined by four clients: three businessmen and one of their sons. As such, the mission will be the first time that a Blue Origin flight on the New Shepard rocket includes the six people it can carry, the aerospace company said.
The flight will be the nineteenth trip for the New Shepard. As with other private Blue Origin launches, including those that carried Bezos himself, and recently William Shatner, passengers will fly to the edge of space, stay there for a bit, and then descend back.
The launch is scheduled for December 9. Blue Origin will host a live broadcast of the event from West Texas.
Blue Origin claims that short trips to space help promote “the company’s vision of millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of the Earth.”
But the company’s efforts to join the space exploration work have been largely thwarted. SpaceX, from rival billionaire Elon Musk, has sent people into space farther and for longer, and will be involved in the mission to get humans back to the Moon on behalf of NASA, generating a number of legal challenges from Bezos. and Blue Origin.
