Blue origin launches ‘GMA’ host, more
Michael Strahan has made a handful of career moves, from NFL player to sports TV personality to “Good Morning America” host. His last attempt? Astronaut.
Strahan took the plane with five other passengers on Blue Origin’s third passenger aircraft on Saturday from the company’s launch site in West Texas. The crew landed around 10:10 ET after being shot up in the sky.
“I want to go back,” Strahan told his friends when he returned ashore.
The 50-year-old TV personality covered the first human space launch from Jeff Bezos̵[ads1]7; Blue Origin this summer, and since then he has been “in love” with human spaceflight, he said. Hans was the space company’s third human spaceflight ever.
“It was surreal,” Strahan described the experience in a video on Instagram on Saturday. “It was amazing. It’s hard to describe it at all. It’s going to take some time to process.”
“I have my wings and can fly. I did that today,” he added.
Others who fled with him include Laura Shepard Churchley, daughter of astronaut Alan Shepard; space industry philanthropist Dylan Taylor; investor Evan Dick; and the first ever parent and child couple to Lane Bess and Cameron Bess.
Churchley and Strahan are guests of honor on the flight, while the other four crew members are paying customers.
“Blue Origin – they approached me and they asked if I wanted to be a crew member, and without hesitation I said ‘yes,'” Strahan told GMA co-hosts Robin Roberts and George Stephanopoulos last month. “I wanted to go to space. . “
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Strahan is not the first known face to go to space. William Shatner, best known for his role in the original “Star Trek” series and the first six films in the “Star Trek” film series, exploded into space with Blue Origin in October.
The 90-year-old actor became the oldest person to visit space, and he described an emotional experience after returning to Earth.
“Everyone in the world needs to do this. Everyone in the world needs to see it,” Shatner said. “It was amazing. The little things – the weightless – but to see the blue color (in the sky) whip off of you and now you stare into the darkness.… And then it’s gone. It was so touching. This experience did nothing to believe. “
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Blue Origin’s first human spaceflight was launched on July 20, when it flew Bezos, Bezos’ brother Mark, Mercury 13 aviator Wally Funk (formerly the oldest person in space) and 18-year-old student Oliver Daemen (son of a hedge fund manager) to suborbital space.
Within minutes, the group exploded from the West Texas desert, reaching space and returning to Earth in a smooth parachute landing.
“Best day ever,” Jeff Bezos said after the touchdown, greeted by a sea of cheering Blue Origin employees and others on the company’s campus.
This was the 16th flight for New Shepard, the 60-foot rocket designed primarily for space tourism, but the first to include humans. Bezos said sales of private seats on his flights are approaching $ 100 million.
Contributor: Amy Haneline
