Wheelchair user flies into space, a historic first

A female German engineer on Saturday became the first wheelchair user to blast into space, taking a brief ride on a Blue Origin flight.

The space company owned by American multibillionaire Jeff Bezos launched its New Shepard suborbital mission at 8:15 a.m. (1415 GMT) from its site in Texas.

Michaela Benthaus, an aerospace and mechatronics engineer at the European Space Agency, was among the passengers to cross the Karman line, the internationally recognized boundary of space at some 100 kilometers above the Earth's surface, during the approximately 10-minute flight.

Benthaus suffered a spinal cord injury after a mountain biking accident and now uses a wheelchair.

"After my accident, I really, really figured out how inaccessible our world still is" for people with disabilities, she said in a video released by the company.

"If we want to be an inclusive society, we should be inclusive in every part, and not only in the parts we like to be," Benthaus added.

The small, fully automated rocket took off vertically, and the capsule carrying the tourists then detached in flight before gently descending back to the Texas desert, slowed by parachutes.

It was the 16th crewed flight for Blue Origin, which has for years offered space tourism flights – the price isn't public – using its New Shepard rocket.

"Congratulations, Michi! You just inspired millions to look up and imagine what is possible," new NASA chief Jared Isaacman said on X.

Dozens of people have traveled to space with Blue Origin, including the pop singer Katy Perry and William Shatner, who played the legendary Captain Kirk on "Star Trek."

These high-profile guests are aimed at maintaining public interest in the flights at a time when private space companies are vying for preeminence.

Virgin Galactic offers a similar suborbital flight experience.

But Blue Origin also has ambitions to compete with Elon Musk's SpaceX in the orbital flight market.

This year, the Bezos company successfully carried out two uncrewed orbital flights using its massive New Glenn rocket, which is significantly more powerful than New Shepard.