A remarkable journey unfolded on Saturday as Michaela Benthaus, a paraplegic engineer from Germany, took a monumental leap beyond Earth’s confines. Leaving her wheelchair behind, Benthaus embarked on what can only be described as a dream come true, soaring into space aboard a Blue Origin rocket with five other passengers. This extraordinary trip allowed her to float weightlessly and gaze down upon the planet from a vantage point few have experienced.
Seven years ago, Benthaus’s life took a dramatic turn following a severe mountain biking accident. On this historic flight, she achieved a groundbreaking milestone by becoming the first wheelchair user to journey into space. The launch took place in West Texas, courtesy of Jeff Bezos’ aerospace company, Blue Origin. Accompanying her was Hans Koenigsmann, a retired executive from SpaceX and a fellow German, who played a crucial role in organizing the journey. Their tickets, though invaluable, remain undisclosed in terms of cost.
Overflowing with joy, Benthaus recounted her experience, sharing how she laughed throughout the ascent. As the capsule climbed over 65 miles into the sky, she even attempted to turn upside down, fully savoring the absence of gravity.
“It was the coolest experience,” Benthaus exclaimed, still brimming with excitement after safely returning to Earth.
The brief yet exhilarating 10-minute voyage required only minor modifications to accommodate Benthaus, underscoring the New Shepard capsule’s design focus on accessibility. Jake Mills, an engineer at Blue Origin who played a pivotal role in training the crew and supporting the launch, emphasized the capsule’s inclusivity, highlighting how it caters to a diverse range of travelers beyond the typical scope of spaceflight.
Blue Origin’s pioneering efforts have previously welcomed other space tourists with varying physical abilities, including those with limited mobility, and even two 90-year-olds, further cementing the company’s commitment to making space travel more universally accessible.
For Benthaus, Blue Origin added a patient transfer board so she could scoot between the capsule’s hatch and her seat. The recovery team also unrolled a carpet on the desert floor following touchdown, providing immediate access to her wheelchair, which she left behind at liftoff. She practiced in advance, with Koenigsmann taking part with the design and testing. An elevator was already in place at the launch pad to ascend the seven stories to the capsule perched atop the rocket.
Benthaus, 33, part of the European Space Agency’s graduate trainee program in the Netherlands, experienced snippets of weightlessness during a parabolic airplane flight out of Houston in 2022. Less than two years later, she took part in a two-week simulated space mission in Poland.
“I never really thought that going on a spaceflight would be a real option for me because even as like a super healthy person, it’s like so competitive, right?” she told The Associated Press ahead of the flight.
Her accident dashed whatever hope she had. “There is like no history of people with disabilities flying to space,” she said.
When Koenigsmann approached her last year about the possibility of flying on Blue Origin and experiencing more than three minutes of weightlessness on a space hop, Benthaus thought there might be a misunderstanding. But there wasn’t, and she immediately signed on.
It’s a private mission for Benthaus with no involvement by ESA, which this year cleared reserve astronaut John McFall, an amputee, for a future flight to the International Space Station. The former British Paralympian lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident when he was a teenager.
An injured spinal cord means Benthaus can’t walk at all, unlike McFall who uses a prosthetic leg and could evacuate a space capsule in an emergency at touchdown by himself. Koenigsmann was designated before flight as her emergency helper; he and Mills lifted her out of the capsule and down the short flight of steps at flight’s end.
“You should never give up on your dreams, right?” Benthaus urged following touchdown.
Benthaus was adamant about doing as much as she could by herself. Her goal is to make not only space accessible to the disabled, but to improve accessibility on Earth too.
While getting lots of positive feedback within “my space bubble,” she said outsiders aren’t always as inclusive.
“I really hope it’s opening up for people like me, like I hope I’m only the start,” she said.
Besides Koenigsmann, Benthaus shared the ride with business executives and investors, and a computer scientist. They raised Blue Origin’s list of space travelers to 86.
Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, created Blue Origin in 2000 and launched on its first passenger spaceflight in 2021. The company has since delivered spacecraft to orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida, using the bigger and more powerful New Glenn rocket, and is working to send landers to the moon.
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