The next celebrity in line for a journey to the edge of space, courtesy of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Astro-tourism company, is ‘Saturday Night Live’ actor Pete Davidson. His suborbital flight is going to take place the following week.
Blue Origin announced on Monday that the 28-year-old comedian and boyfriend of socialite and reality TV star Kim Kardashian would be an “honorary guest”. He will be accompanying five paying customers on the company’s fourth commercial flight since last summer.
Rumors were that Davidson had been in talks with Blue Origin earlier this month. But he had no immediate statement on his selection. Angel investor Marty Allen, real estate veteran Marc Hagle and his wife Sharon Hagle, University of North Carolina professor Jim Kitchen, and George Nield, founder-president of Commercial Space Technologies, are his five fellow citizen astronauts-to-be.
They are going to fly on March 23 aboard Blue Origin’s six-story-tall, completely autonomous spacecraft. The name of the spacecraft is New Shepard. It will launch from the company’s launch pad in Van Horn, Texas.
From takeoff to touchdown, the journey is likely to take just over 10 minutes. At the absolute top of their suborbital joyride, 350,000 feet (106 km) above Earth, the crew will experience a few minutes of weightlessness before falling back to Earth for a parachute landing on the desert floor.
Non-paying promotional Blue Origin passengers
Pete Davidson has been a member of the SNL for 9 years. He also co-wrote and featured in the semi-autobiographical film ‘The King of Staten Island’. He is the latest edition in a long list of celebrities to be the non-paying promotional Blue Origin passengers.
Pete joins 90-year-old ‘Star Trek’ actor William Shatner, who became the oldest person to fly to space in October. Also, he follows the footsteps of former NFL star Michael Strahan, co-host of “Good Morning America”. In December, Strahan took to the skies with Laura Shepard Churchley, the eldest daughter of late NASA astronaut Alan Shepard. The Blue Origin rocketship is named after him.
Bezos accompanied his brother Mark Bezos, trailblazing octogenarian female aviator Wally Funk, and 18-year-old Oliver Daeman, a Dutch high school graduate and winner of a $28 million auction sweepstakes, on Blue Origin’s inaugural crewed voyage to space in July of last year.