Blue Origin launches 1st wheelchair user to space and back

Aerospace engineer Michi Benthaus made spaceflight history on Saturday morning (Dec. 20).

a small rocket carrying six people in a capsule lifts off, set against the rising sun — Blue Origin launched the six-person NS-37 crew aboard a New Shepard rocket from West Texas on Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025. (Image credit: Blue Origin)

The launch was originally scheduled to occur on Thursday, but that attempt was called off due to an "issue with built-in checks prior to flight," Blue Origin commentators said during the livestream that day.

Benthaus, who works at the European Space Agency, has used a wheelchair since suffering a mountain-biking accident in 2018. Joining her on the Saturday's flight are investors Joey Hyde and Adonis Pouroulis, aerospace engineer Hans Koenigsmann, entrepreneur Neal Milch and self-proclaimed "space nerd" Jason Stansell.

Koenigsmann's name and face are familiar to many space fans, for he worked at SpaceX from 2002 to 2021. He served as the company's vice president of build and flight reliability for the final 10 years of that tenure and participated in many post-launch press conferences in that capacity.

Blue Origin designated the mission NS-37, because it was the 37th liftoff of New Shepard, an autonomous, fully reusable rocket-capsule combo.

New Shepard flights are suborbital and brief, lasting just 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff to capsule touchdown. Passengers get to see Earth against the blackness of space and experience a few minutes of weightlessness.

They also get astronaut wings. New Shepard gets above the 62-mile-high (100 kilometers) Kármán line, the widely recognized boundary where outer space begins.

a photo grid showing headshots of five men and one woman — The six passengers on Blue Origin's upcoming NS-37 suborbital spaceflight. (Image credit: Blue Origin)

a hexagonal mission patch featuring a white space capsule against a dark-blue background — The patch for Blue Origin's NS-37 suborbital tourism mission. (Image credit: Blue Origin)

As of Saturday, 16 of New Shepard's 37 flights have carried passengers; the other 20 have been uncrewed research missions. The 16 crewed flights have lofted a total of 92 people, though just 86 individuals — six passengers have been repeat customers.

Blue Origin has not disclosed how much it charges for a seat aboard New Shepard.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 12:45 p.m. ET on Dec. 22 to correct an error: New Shepard has now launched 16 crewed missions to date, not 17.

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

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