Laura Shepard Churchley, daughter of Alan Shepard, the first American to go into space, will launch onboard Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft to the edge of space on Thursday. She will be joined by Good Morning America co-anchor Michael Strahan and four others on Bezos led Blue Origin's third tourism flight.
“I’m very proud of my father’s legacy. I believe he would say the same thing as my children: go for it!” Laura said in a video tweeted by Blue Origin. Remembering her father, the legendary Alan Shephard, she said that one day he asked her to find something in the sky and "we saw a vehicle in space, it was Russian, and then he announced he would be an astronaut and working for Nasa."
"Nasa is going to clip me on a spacecraft, on top of a rocket, and blast me into space and then I will come back to Earth," Alan told his daughter.
"I am really interested in all of the things space travel has brought to the world. I am very excited to be going on a Blue Origin flight. He was the first American in space, the fifth man to land on the Moon and the only person to play golf on the lunar surface. he would have said go for it Laura," she said.
Who was Alan Shepard?
Alan Shepard was an astronaut who became the first American in space during a suborbital flight aboard his Mercury capsule named Freedom 7 in 1961. Based on the success of his flight, then American president John F. Kennedy committed the United States to achieve a lunar landing before the end of the decade.
On this flight, Shepard did not orbit Earth, instead, he flew 116 miles high. Then he came back. The flight lasted just over 15 minutes. Shepard's second spaceflight was Apollo 14, this time he went to the moon. Shepard was the commander leading Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell. The Apollo spacecraft launched on a Saturn V rocket.
After his ventures beyond Earth, Shepard also worked as the head of the Astronaut Office. He left NASA in 1974.
Blue Origin's third space flight
Blue Origin, which earlier this year launched its founder Jeff Bezos on its maiden space flight, is looking to end the year with a hat-trick of successful flights. The third flight which will lift off from Launch Site One in West Texas at 9:00 am CST will carry a full manifest of six astronauts to space for the first time.
While Laura and Michael Strahan are guest passengers, the four paying customers include philanthropist Dylan Taylor, investor Evan Dick, Bess Ventures founder Lane Bess, and Cameron Bess. Lane and Cameron Bess will become the first parent-child pair to fly in space.
It will be New Shepard’s third human flight this year, the sixth for the program in 2021, and the 19th in its history. The company last launched famed actor William Shatner along with Glen de Vries, co-founder of Medidata Solutions, Dr Chris Boshuizen, founder of PlanetLabs, and Audrey Powers on a short trip beyond Earth on October 13.