A 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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Doctors wish they wouldn'tOlder adults may struggle to learn a new language but classes are a worthwhile exerciseLike many holiday traditions, lighting candles and fireplaces is best done in moderationIn Antarctica, photos show a remote area teeming with life amid growing risks from climate changeMinnesota jury says Johnson & Johnson owes $65.5 million to woman with cancer who used talcum powderOlder adults may struggle to learn a new language but classes are a worthwhile exerciseTikTok signs deal to form new US unit with investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake'6-7,' Dubai chocolate, Labubu: You took 2025, now scat!Pope names new archbishop of Westminster as part of generational shift in English-speaking hierarchy | This photo provided by Blue Origin shows Michaela Benthaus, a German engineer aiming to become the first wheelchair user in space, sitting in a capsule mockup Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, at Blue Origin’s rocket launch site in Van Horn, Texas. This photo provided by Blue Origin shows Michaela Benthaus, a German engineer aiming to become the first wheelchair user in space, talking to crewmate Hans Koenigsmann, a retired SpaceX executive who helped organize and sponsor her flight, on Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, at Blue Origin’s rocket launch site in Van Horn, Texas. This photo provided by Blue Origin shows Michaela Benthaus, a German engineer aiming to become the first wheelchair user in space, sitting in a capsule mockup Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, at Blue Origin’s rocket launch site in Van Horn, Texas. This photo provided by Blue Origin shows Michaela Benthaus, a German engineer aiming to become the first wheelchair user in space, sitting in a capsule mockup Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, at Blue Origin’s rocket launch site in Van Horn, Texas. This photo provided by Blue Origin shows Michaela Benthaus, a German engineer aiming to become the first wheelchair user in space, talking to crewmate Hans Koenigsmann, a retired SpaceX executive who helped organize and sponsor her flight, on Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, at Blue Origin’s rocket launch site in Van Horn, Texas. This photo provided by Blue Origin shows Michaela Benthaus, a German engineer aiming to become the first wheelchair user in space, talking to crewmate Hans Koenigsmann, a retired SpaceX executive who helped organize and sponsor her flight, on Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, at Blue Origin’s rocket launch site in Van Horn, Texas. A paraplegic engineer from Germany blasted off on a dream-come-true rocket ride with five other passengers Saturday, leaving her wheelchair behind to float in space while beholding Earth from on high. Severely injured in a mountain bike accident seven years ago, Michaela Benthaus became the first wheelchair user to launch to space, soaring from West Texas with. She was accompanied by a retired SpaceX executive also born in Germany, Hans Koenigsmann, who helped organize and, along withThe 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 had a carpet to lay 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 also was tapped to help 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.
Michaela Benthaus Aerospace And Defense Industry Spacecraft General News Texas Local News For Apple TX State Wire Aerospace Technology Germany Space Exploration Hans Koenigsmann John Mcfall Space Launches Science Jake Mills Technology Business U.S. News U.S. News
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