Blue Origin launch to mark first-ever wheelchair user in space

Blue Origin is preparing another tourist flight beyond Earth’s atmosphere, but this one carries a first that could reshape who gets to go to space. When New Shepard Mission NS-37 lifts off, Michaela “Michi” Benthaus is set to become the first wheelchair user to reach suborbital space. The company has not announced the launch date, but the roster of six passengers is now public, and anticipation is building.

Benthaus’s seat on the rocket is not a symbolic gesture. It reflects years of engineering work, testing and advocacy focused on making spaceflight open to more people. In 2018, her life changed after a mountain biking crash damaged her spinal cord and left her unable to walk. Instead of stepping away from science, she leaned into it. She trained as an aerospace and mechatronics engineer and now works with the European Space Agency in Munich while also pushing for inclusive design in human space travel.

Her path toward NS-37 began in 2022, when she flew on a Zero Gravity Corporation aircraft with AstroAccess. Those flights follow a steep up and down pattern called parabolas, creating brief periods of weightlessness. Benthaus has completed 18 of them. During each, she tested how a wheelchair user can move, secure equipment and stay safe without gravity.

AstroAccess, a project of SciAccess Inc., was founded in 2021 to bring people with disabilities into the research and design of space missions. Its teams include scientists, students, athletes, veterans and artists. They do not fly for show. Each flight is a mobile lab, where equipment is strapped down, adapted and sometimes built from scratch to work in microgravity.

The group’s message is simple. “If we can make space accessible, we can make any space accessible.” For Benthaus, that philosophy is personal. She has helped study handholds shaped for different grips, restraint systems that do not rely on leg strength and ways to manage medical needs in zero gravity.

Her results are now stepping off the airplane and onto a rocket. Blue Origin’s New Shepard vehicle will carry her and five others past the Kármán line, the 62 mile marker often called the edge of space. The flight will last only minutes, but its impact may ripple much longer.

Alan Ladwig, a former senior official at NASA, views the launch as a turning point. He joined the space agency in 1981 and later helped create programs that allowed teachers and journalists to fly aboard the shuttle.

“This is a historical flight,” he said.

Ladwig recalled a moment from 1985 that shows how far the industry has come. At the time, a journalist who was a paraplegic had made the finals for NASA’s spaceflight program.

“Citing the STS 41 D incident, an astronaut complained to me that it would be highly dangerous if this person would have been selected,” Ladwig said. “If getting out of the orbiter needed to be done quickly, how was he supposed to exit safely with a paraplegic?”

The concern followed a close call in June 1984, when a space shuttle mission aborted seconds before launch. The crew escaped safely, but the tension lingered.

Around that same period, Harriet Jenkins, then head of NASA’s Office of Equal Opportunity, ordered a study on whether people with disabilities could fly safely. The answer arrived in late 1985, according to Ladwig. Then history took another turn.

After the Challenger disaster in 1986, civilian flight was put on hold. The report slipped into the background. For decades, the idea of a disabled astronaut remained more concept than plan.

Europe moved to test that idea again in recent years. In November 2022, the European Space Agency named a new astronaut class that included John McFall, a former Paralympic sprinter. His selection launched the Parastronaut Feasibility Project, which studied whether a crew member with a physical disability could live and work aboard the International Space Station. The project concluded in 2024 that it could be done.

“I am not aware of any specific plans to do so,” Ladwig said, but he called the findings crucial. “The current effort with Michaela Benthaus will be an important step for opening up space travel to all who have orbital dreams.”

Blue Origin’s NS 37 crew shows how commercial spaceflight now blends science, business and personal stories.

Alongside Benthaus is Joey Hyde, a physicist who recently left a hedge fund career. He traces his love of space to 1988, when his grandparents took him to watch Space Shuttle Atlantis launch. That memory led him to earn a doctorate in astrophysics and now, decades later, a ticket to space.

Hans Koenigsmann, a rocket engineer who worked at SpaceX for 20 years, also joins the flight. Known for his role in developing reusable rockets, he now advises several aerospace companies. He is also a licensed pilot, an aircraft builder and, by his own account, eager to encourage young people to study science.

Neal Milch brings a biomedical angle. As chair of the Jackson Laboratory board, he supports genetics research that aims to improve human health. He grew up watching the Gemini and Apollo missions and adopted the motto “In Omnia Paratus,” which means “Ready for Anything.”

Adonis Pouroulis represents the energy and mining world. He leads companies working on critical minerals and sustainable power across Africa and beyond. He describes his seat on New Shepard as a lifelong goal.

Jason Stansell, a computer science graduate from Tulane University, rounds out the group. He dedicates his flight to his brother Kevin, who died of brain cancer in 2016. Stansell hopes the trip will spark scientific curiosity and healthy skepticism.

Blue Origin says 86 people have crossed the edge of space aboard its vehicles so far, counting 80 individual fliers. NS 37 will add six more names and one milestone.

On launch day, a webcast will begin 40 minutes before liftoff. For Benthaus, the countdown is more than a ride. It is proof that design can change who belongs in places once thought unreachable.

Like these kind of feel good stories? Get The Brighter Side of News' newsletter.