Blue Origin launched German aerospace engineer Michaela Benthaus aboard New Shepard on December 20, 2025, making her the first wheelchair user to reach space. The NS-37 mission carried Benthaus and five other passengers from Launch Site One in West Texas.
The capsule reached an altitude of more than 65 miles (105 km), above the 100-kilometer Kármán line widely recognized as the boundary of space. The suborbital flight gave passengers several minutes of weightlessness before the capsule returned to Earth under parachutes.
“It was the coolest experience!” Benthaus said after landing.
Boarding and flight assistance
Benthaus has been paraplegic since a mountain biking accident in 2018. She boarded the capsule by moving along a bench extending from its hatch. Hans Koenigsmann, a former SpaceX executive who helped arrange the trip, sat nearby to assist her if needed. After landing, he and a Blue Origin recovery team member carried her from the capsule to her wheelchair.
Benthaus had previously experienced weightlessness during an AstroAccess parabolic flight in December 2022. During that flight, she tested moving into a seat and fastening its safety harness, as well as a way to hold herself in place without using her feet.
Koenigsmann joined Benthaus on NS-37 alongside physicist and investor Joey Hyde, entrepreneur Neal Milch, entrepreneur and investor Adonis Pouroulis, and Jason Stansell. Blue Origin did not disclose ticket pricing.
New Shepard’s 16th passenger flight
Blue Origin said NS-37 was New Shepard’s 37th mission and its 16th with passengers. Across those missions, New Shepard had carried 86 individuals to space, six of them twice, for a total of 92 passenger journeys. Its first passenger mission took place in July 2021.
Benthaus works at the European Space Agency. Separately, ESA said reserve astronaut John McFall, who uses a prosthetic leg, received medical clearance in 2025 for long-duration missions to the International Space Station. That clearance concerns orbital missions, distinct from Benthaus’s brief suborbital flight.
