“Saturday Night Live” actor Pete Davidson will travel to the far reaches of space next week on Blue Origin’s next spaceflight, the compa...
“Saturday Night Live” actor Pete Davidson will travel to the far reaches of space next week on Blue Origin’s next spaceflight, the company announced Monday.
Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos, announced on Monday that it will launch its fourth flight with human passengers on March 23. Mr Davidson will be one of six passengers on the company’s New Shepard rocket on its 20th flight.
Mr. Bezos, the founder of Amazon and one of the richest people in the world, was a passenger on board the first flight with humans on board last July. Earlier that month, another private spaceflight company, Virgin Galactic, took its founder, Richard Branson, to the edge of space and back.
Mr Davidson, 28, joined the cast of ‘Saturday Night Live’ in 2014. He has also appeared in films including the semi-autobiographical 2020 film ‘The King of Staten Island’. He could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday.
A spokeswoman for Blue Origin said on Monday that Mr Davidson would fly as “guest of honour”, while the other five passengers were paying customers. The spokeswoman did not say how much others were charged to join the flight.
Mr. Davidson will be the last celebrity passenger to travel to the far reaches of space with Blue Origin.
In October, “Star Trek” actor William Shatner, 90, became the oldest person to travel in space and cross the Kármán Line, the widely recognized boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space that sits approximately 62 miles above the planet’s surface. Mr Shatner shared the New Shepard rocket with three other passengers on a mission that lasted around 10 minutes.
In December, “Good Morning America” co-host Michael Strahan joined a Blue Origin flight with five others.
The flight carrying Mr. Davidson is scheduled to take off from the Blue Origin launch site in West Texas at 8:30 a.m. local time on March 23.
In addition to Mr. Davidson, Blue Origin announced on Monday that the flight will have five other passengers: Marty Allen, Sharon and Marc Hagle, Jim Kitchen and George Nield.
Mr. Allen is a former general manager of Party America, the party supplies store. Mr. Hagle is President and Chief Executive Officer of Tricor International, a residential and commercial real estate development company. Ms Hagle founded the non-profit group SpaceKids Global. Mr. Kitchen is Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship Practice at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Dr. Nield is president of Commercial Space Technologies. From 2008 to 2018, he served as associate administrator for commercial space transportation at the Federal Aviation Administration, the agency that regulates commercial launches like Blue Origin’s.
Kenneth Chang contributed report.
COMMENTS