{"id":17411,"date":"2022-03-14T22:28:29","date_gmt":"2022-03-14T14:28:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/its-a-date-comedian-pete-davidson-will-headline-blue-origin-suborbital-space-trip-next-week\/"},"modified":"2022-03-14T22:28:29","modified_gmt":"2022-03-14T14:28:29","slug":"its-a-date-comedian-pete-davidson-will-headline-blue-origin-suborbital-space-trip-next-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/its-a-date-comedian-pete-davidson-will-headline-blue-origin-suborbital-space-trip-next-week\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a date! Comedian Pete Davidson will headline Blue Origin suborbital space trip next week"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full-width\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" height=\"484\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/NS-20-Astronauts-Grid-630x484.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-682727\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/NS-20-Astronauts-Grid-630x484.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/NS-20-Astronauts-Grid-768x590.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/NS-20-Astronauts-Grid.jpg 1206w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption>\u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d cast member Pete Davidson is due to be accompanied by five other spacefliers on a Blue Origin suborbital space mission set for March 23. (Photos via Blue Origin)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture has confirmed that \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d comedian Pete Davidson will be going to space next week, less than a year after he portrayed a hapless Mars astronaut on NBC\u2019s late-night sketch show.<\/p>\n<p>Bezos won\u2019t be accompanying Davidson, even though that was the impression given by some of last week\u2019s gossip about the flight. Instead, five paying passengers will be riding alongside the 28-year-old actor, who co-wrote and starred in a semi-autobiographical movie titled \u201cThe King of Staten Island\u201d in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>The other five spacefliers listed in today\u2019s announcement are:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Marty Allen<\/strong>, an angel investor and the former CEO of Party America and California Closet Company, among other ventures.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Marc Hagle<\/strong>, the president and CEO of Tricor International, a residential and commercial property development corporation.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sharon Hagle<\/strong>, the founder of SpaceKids Global, a nonprofit organization focusing on STEAM+ education, with a special emphasis on empowering girls. SpaceKids participates in the Postcards to Space program led by the Club for the Future, Blue Origin\u2019s educational foundation. Marc and Sharon Hagle are husband and wife.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Jim Kitchen<\/strong>, a teacher, entrepreneur and explorer who has served on the faculty of the University of North Carolina\u2019s Kenan-Flagler Business School since 2010.<\/li>\n<li><strong>George Nield<\/strong>, a former associate administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration\u2019s Office of Commercial Space Transportation who is now the president of Commercial Space Technologies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Blue Origin said Davidson would be getting a free flight as the company\u2019s guest. The company declined to say how much the other fliers would be paying for their trips.<\/p>\n<p>Liftoff from Blue Origin\u2019s Launch Site One in West Texas is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. CT (6:30 a.m. PT) on March 23. Blue Origin is due to begin live streaming coverage via its website at T-60 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>The mission will mark the 20th flight for Blue Origin\u2019s New Shepard suborbital space program, and the fourth crewed flight. There\u2019s been at least one celebrity guest aboard each of the crewed flights \u2014 including aviation pioneer Wally Funk, Star Trek captain William Shatner and Laura Shepard Churchley, the daughter of the late Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard (after whom New Shepard is named).<\/p>\n<p>Like those earlier flights, next week\u2019s NS-20 trip will involve launching the hydrogen-fueled, reusable New Shepard suborbital spacecraft to a height beyond 100 kilometers (62 miles) \u2014 the so-called Karman Line that marks the internationally accepted boundary of outer space.<\/p>\n<p>Davidson and his fellow fliers would experience a few minutes of weightlessness inside the crew capsule, get a good look at the black sky above and the Earth below through the capsule\u2019s giant windows, and then descend to a parachute-assisted landing in the Texas desert.<\/p>\n<p>The whole trip should take about 10 minutes \u2014 which is about three times as long as the \u201cChad on Mars\u201d sketch that featured Davidson and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk during an episode of \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d last year.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Chad on Mars - SNL\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FuaDWyCnJxs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Blue Origin said each of the spacefliers on next week\u2019s mission will carry a postcard to space on behalf of the Club for the Future. The nonprofit club collects postcards from students, has them flown aboard New Shepard, and then mails the space-flown cards back to the senders.<\/p>\n<p>New Shepard is just one of the space programs being pursued by Bezos\u2019 22-year-old space venture, which is headquartered in Kent, Wash. <\/p>\n<p>The privately held company is also working on its next-generation BE-4 rocket engine, an orbital-class New Glenn reusable rocket, a lunar landing system, a nuclear thermal propulsion system and a space station project called Orbital Reef.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d cast member Pete Davidson is due to be accompanied by five other spacefliers on a Blue Origin suborbital space mission set for March 23. (Photos via Blue Origin) Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture has confirmed that \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d comedian Pete Davidson will be going to space next week, less than [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[509,1250,4649,4650,493,4402],"class_list":["post-17411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-blue-origin","tag-new-shepard","tag-pete-davidson","tag-saturday-night-live","tag-space-tourism","tag-suborbital-spaceflight"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17411"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}