yesterday, the daughter of the first american astronaut followed in her fathers footsteps blasting off to the edge of space sixty years after he made history. laura shepard churchley took off on board a commercial aircraft named after her dad alan shepard. mark lobel reports. three, two, one. from rural texas to the edge of space. laura shepard churchley following in her father s footsteps 60 years after his pioneering flight is the first american to make the journey. in a spacecraft named after him. mission control has confirmed new shepard has cleared the tower and is on its way to space. it was a once in a lifetime ride on board this fully autonomous six storey tall commercial flight reaching an altitude of over 100 kilometres during a thrilling 10 minute trip. long enough to experience zero gravity, though.
Jeff Bezos Blue Origin launched its third space tourism flight on Saturday morning, just after 10 a.m., from Launch Site One in the West Texas town of Van Horn.
The New Shepard spacecraft named after her father Alan Shepard blasted off from the launch site one in West Texas Saturday carrying Laura and five others to space.
it is a full flight on board this morning, on board the new shepard spacecraft, including news anchor michael strahan, and laura shepard, the daughter of alan shepard. the spacecraft is actually named after alan. they are riding along with four other paying customers. i m almost trembling, i m so excited to see this live. similar to previous flights, the mission is expected to last about ten minutes. with the crew experiencing about three minutes of weightlessness before the capsule starts to descent back to earth. we re being told t-minus one minute. six passengers on board. i guess one of the stars of the
they ll be soaking up the last bids of it. it s an amazing human experience. it s wonderful to watch. i especially, for laura, her dad did it 60 years ago, almost the people same flight. rachel, what are you seeing from your vantage point? reporter: i don t know if you can hear. we heard the sonic boom of the booster landing. we could see it landing right behind me, that booster, the fifth time they just confirmed it, buser touchdown. what we hear now, i think oh, that s still just the reverberation of the sonic boom. anyway, we know, we can confirm that the booster has landed. the capsule will be landing any time soon. as chris was pointingous, he was thinking of the moment in zero