German engineer becomes first wheelchair user to go to space as part of Blue Origin mission
Jeff Bezos' aerospace firm Blue Origin marked a historic milestone on Saturday (December 20) after launching the first wheelchair user above the Kármán line — the internationally recognized boundary of space. German aerospace engineer Michaela Benthaus, an engineer with the European Space Agency, sustained a spinal cord injury after a mountain biking accident in 2018 and has since become an advocate for accessible space travel. She and her fellow passengers Joey Hyde, Hans Koenigsmann, Neal Milch, Adonis Pouroulis, and Jason Stansel blasted off into space aboard a Blue Origin New Shephard rocket at 0916 am EDT/1416GMT. The crew experienced a few minutes of microgravity before returning to Earth via parachute-assisted landing in the West Texas desert. "I think you should never give up on your dreams, right? I mean, there's also sometimes just a low probability that it comes true. And I just got very lucky," Benthaus said upon landing.
BLUE ORIGIN | REUTERS
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