Blue Origin flight sends husband and wife on their second suborbital trip to space

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture sent six more people to the edge of space today — including the first husband-and-wife pair to make two trips together to the final frontier, and a science communicator who describes herself as “the Space Gal.”

The six spacefliers were launched from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in West Texas at 9:30 a.m. CT (7:30 a.m. PT) aboard the company’s New Shepard suborbital rocket ship. They raised Blue Origin’s tally of spacefliers to 47 — a number that now accounts for roughly 6% of all the humans who have flown into space,

During the 10-minute flight, New Shepard’s crew capsule rose just beyond 347,000 feet (105.8 kilometers, or 65.7 miles), which is just above the 100-kilometer Karman Line that serves as the internationally accepted boundary of space.

While the capsule was floating to a parachute-assisted landing amid the Texas scrublands, New Shepard’s booster flew itself back autonomously to a landing pad near the launch pad.

The New Shepard program is nearly a decade old, and began flying crew members (including Bezos himself) in 2021. This was the program’s 28th flight and the ninth crewed flight. The crew for the NS-28 mission included:

• Marc and Sharon Hagle, who previously flew together on New Shepard in 2022. That flight made them the first married couple to launch on a commercial space vehicle. (NASA astronauts Jan Davis and Mark Lee were the first husband and wife to go into space simultaneously, but that’s another story.) Today’s flight qualified the Hagles as the first married couple to take two spaceflights together. Marc is a commercial property developer, while Sharon is the founder of an educational nonprofit group called SpaceKids Global.
• Emily Calandrelli, a science communicator who’s the host of “Emily’s Wonder Lab” on Netflix, “Xploration Outer Space” on Fox TV stations and “Emily’s Science Lab” on YouTube. Calandrelli was trained as an engineer at MIT and is the author of nine children’s books about space and science. Today’s trip made her the 100th woman to fly to space.
• Austin Litteral, a risk management professional in the financial services industry. Litteral won his ticket to ride in a “Whatnot to the Moon” giveaway, sponsored by the Whatnot livestream shopping platform.
• J.D. Russell, the founder of InfoHOA, a company specializing in tech-based community management solutions. Russell is also the founder of the Victoria Russell Foundation, which is dedicated to supporting children’s education and assistance to the families of first responders.
• Hank Wolfond, chairman and CEO of Bayshore Capital in Toronto. Wolfond moonlights as a professional pilot on charter, medevac and organ retrieval flights. He also works with groups including the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee and the Toronto General and Western Hospital Foundation.

After the flight, Marc Hagle emerged from the capsule holding a flag emblazoned with the number “2,” referring to the Hagles’ status as two-time spacefliers. One other Blue Origin client, Florida investor Evan Dick, is also a two-timer.

Calandrelli was enthusiastic about the feeling she had when she saw Earth’s expanse beneath the black sky of space. “I kept saying, ‘That’s our planet. That’s our planet,'” she said. “It was the same feeling I had when my kids were born. I was like, ‘That’s my baby.'”

“It’s always moving to witness an astronaut crew return from space changed by their experience on New Shepard,” Phil Joyce, Blue Origin’s senior vice president for New Shepard, said in a post-mission statement. “This mission amplifies the importance of STEAM [science, technology, engineering, art and math] and inspiring the next generation, and we welcomed back two returning astronauts.”

Blue Origin doesn’t publicize the price for a New Shepard ride, but based on the Hagles’ experience, it just might offer a discount for return customers.

Standing beside his wife, Wolfond said he couldn’t wait to fly again. “She’s coming with me next time,” he said. “We’re going to do the Hagle thing.”