A paraplegic engineer has become the first wheelchair user in space, blasting off with Blue Origin.
An ecstatic Benthaus said she laughed all the way up — the capsule soared more than 65 miles — and tried to turn upside down once in space.The 10-minute space-skimming flight required only minor adjustments to accommodate Benthaus, according to the company.
That’s because the autonomous New Shepard capsule was designed with accessibility in mind, “making it more accessible to a wider range of people than traditional spaceflight,” said Blue Origin’s Jake Mills, an engineer who trained the crew and assisted them on launch day. Among Blue Origin’s previous space tourists: those with limited mobility and impaired sight or hearing, and a pair of 90-year-olds. For Benthaus, Blue Origin added a patient transfer board so she could scoot between the capsule’s hatch and her seat. The recovery team also unrolled a carpet on the desert floor following touchdown, providing immediate access to her wheelchair, which she left behind at liftoff. She practiced in advance, with Koenigsmann taking part with the design and testing. An elevator was already in place at the launch pad to ascend the seven stories to the capsule perched atop the rocket. Benthaus, 33, part of the European Space Agency’s graduate trainee program in the Netherlands, experienced snippets of weightlessness during a parabolic airplane flight out of Houston in 2022. Less than two years later, she took part in a two-week simulated space mission in Poland. “I never really thought that going on a spaceflight would be a real option for me because even as like a super healthy person, it’s like so competitive, right?” she told The Associated Press ahead of the flight. Her accident dashed whatever hope she had. “There is like no history of people with disabilities flying to space," she said. When Koenigsmann approached her last year about the possibility of flying on Blue Origin and experiencing more than three minutes of weightlessness on a space hop, Benthaus thought there might be a misunderstanding. But there wasn't, and she immediately signed on. It’s a private mission for Benthaus with no involvement by ESA, which this year cleared reserve astronaut John McFall, an amputee, for a future flight to the International Space Station. The former British Paralympian lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident when he was a teenager. An injured spinal cord means Benthaus can’t walk at all, unlike McFall who uses a prosthetic leg and could evacuate a space capsule in an emergency at touchdown by himself. Koenigsmann was designated before flight as her emergency helper; he and Mills lifted her out of the capsule and down the short flight of steps at flight’s end.Benthaus was adamant about doing as much as she could by herself. Her goal is to make not only space accessible to the disabled, but to improve accessibility on Earth too. While getting lots of positive feedback within “my space bubble,” she said outsiders aren't always as inclusive.Besides Koenigsmann, Benthaus shared the ride with business executives and investors, and a computer scientist. They raised Blue Origin’s list of space travelers to 86. Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, created Blue Origin in 2000 and launched on its first passenger spaceflight in 2021. The company has since delivered spacecraft to orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida, using the bigger and more powerful New Glenn rocket, and is working to send landers to the moon.The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. 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Paraplegic engineer from Germany takes historic rocket ride with Blue OriginA paraplegic engineer looking to become the first wheelchair user in space has blasted off on a rocket ride with Blue Origin. Severely injured in a mountain bike accident seven years ago, Michaela Benthaus rocketed away from West Texas on Saturday with Jeff Bezos' company.
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Paraplegic engineer becomes the first wheelchair user to blast into spaceA paraplegic engineer has become the first wheelchair user in space, blasting off with Blue Origin.
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Paraplegic engineer becomes the first wheelchair user to blast into spaceA paraplegic engineer has become the first wheelchair user in space, blasting off with Blue Origin.
Read more »
Paraplegic engineer becomes the first wheelchair user to blast into spaceA paraplegic engineer has become the first wheelchair user in space, blasting off with Blue Origin.
Read more »
Paraplegic engineer becomes the first wheelchair user to blast into spaceA paraplegic engineer has become the first wheelchair user in space, blasting off with Blue Origin.
Read more »
Paraplegic engineer becomes the first wheelchair user to blast into spaceA paraplegic engineer has become the first wheelchair user in space, blasting off with Blue Origin.
Read more »