A German engineer who became paraplegic after a mountain biking crash has just checked off a lifelong dream: a trip to space.
Michaela Benthaus launched Saturday from Blue Origin’s West Texas site aboard the company’s New Shepard rocket, becoming the first wheelchair user to reach space. The suborbital hop took the capsule above 65 miles (105 km), giving the crew a few minutes of weightlessness and a sweeping view of Earth.
“I laughed all the way up,” Benthaus said after landing, adding that she even tried to flip upside down once the capsule reached microgravity. “It was the coolest experience.”
A mission designed around accessibility
Benthaus’ flight required only minor changes, Blue Origin said, because New Shepard’s passenger capsule was built to be more accessible than traditional spacecraft.
For this mission, the company added a patient transfer board so Benthaus could move between the hatch and her seat. After touchdown, the recovery team rolled out a carpet on the desert floor to provide immediate wheelchair access. An elevator was already available at the launch pad to reach the capsule perched atop the rocket.
Benthaus also trained for the physical demands of the trip in advance. She previously experienced brief weightlessness during a parabolic flight in 2022 and later took part in a two-week simulated space mission in Poland.
Sponsored by Hans Koenigsmann
Benthaus flew alongside Hans Koenigsmann, a German-born former SpaceX executive who helped organize the trip and, along with Blue Origin, sponsored her seat. Ticket pricing was not disclosed.
Koenigsmann was also designated as Benthaus’ emergency helper, assisting her after landing when the crew exited the capsule.
Who else was on board
In addition to Benthaus and Koenigsmann, the mission carried:
- Joey Hyde, a physicist and quantitative investor
- Neal Milch, a business executive and entrepreneur
- Adonis Pouroulis, an entrepreneur and investor
- Jason Stansell, a computer scientist
With this flight, Blue Origin says New Shepard has now flown 92 people to space (86 unique individuals).
The bigger picture for disability and spaceflight
Benthaus, 33, is part of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) graduate trainee program in the Netherlands, but the flight was a private mission with no ESA involvement.
Her trip lands during a moment of growing interest in expanding who can fly. ESA recently cleared reserve astronaut John McFall, an amputee, for a future mission to the International Space Station—a milestone of its own, though a different scenario from a short suborbital flight.
Benthaus said she once assumed spaceflight would never be an option for her. “I never really thought that going on a spaceflight would be a real option for me,” she told the Associated Press before launch.
After touchdown, she offered a message she hopes reaches beyond the space community: “You should never give up on your dreams, right?”
Benthaus says she wants her flight to be a starting point—not only for making space more accessible, but for improving accessibility on Earth as well.
Where Blue Origin goes next
Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000, and the company flew its first passenger mission in 2021. Beyond New Shepard’s space tourism flights, Blue Origin has begun launching payloads to orbit from Cape Canaveral with its larger New Glenn rocket and is also developing lunar landers.