“The Space Gal” is now the 100th woman to fly to space.
Emily Calandrelli, who adopted her online persona long before she booked a trip with Blue Origin, lifted off on Friday (Nov. 22) as one of the six passengers aboard the company’s New Shepard rocket. The 10-minute suborbital flight — of which about four minutes were spent in space — launched and landed at Blue Origin’s West Texas site.
“This is my dream,” wrote Calandrelli on social media when it was announced she was going to be on Blue Origin’s NS-28 crew. “I studied aerospace engineering for nearly a decade, then became the first woman in the U.S. with a national science [TV] show. It became my mission to bring representation to girls in STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics].”
“Now, I’ll become one the first 100 women in space, showing girls everywhere that they too can reach the stars,” she said.
The ninth human spaceflight in Blue Origin’s history, NS-28’s crew also included Marc and Sharon Hagle, a married couple on their second Blue Origin launch after flying on the NS-20 mission in 2022; Austin Litteral, whose seat was sponsored by the livestream shopping platform Whatnot; J.D. Russell, an entrepreneur and former federal marine, fish and wildlife game warden; and Hank Wolfond, the CEO of a Canadian investment firm and a private pilot.
Related: ‘The Space Gal’ Emily Calandrelli opens up about her Blue Origin flight (interview)
The six civilian astronauts rode aboard the “RSS First Step,” Blue Origin’s first of two human-rated New Shepard spacecraft. Lifting off at 10:30 a.m. EST (1530 GMT or 9:30 a.m. local Texas time), the capsule flew past the Kármán line, the internationally accepted border between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space.
The gumdrop-shaped spacecraft then descended under parachutes to a “soft” landing, while the New Shepard propulsion module (or booster) that lofted the crew to altitude made an engine-assisted vertical touchdown.
Calandrelli is the 10th woman to fly on a suborbital spaceflight above the Kármán line. She is the 21st woman to reach space on a suborbital trajectory, including the astronauts who soared higher than the U.S.-recognized altitude of 50 miles (80 km) on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane.
Overall, Calandrelli is now among the 94 men and women who have seen Earth from above 50 miles high but who did not enter orbit. Including all of the people (men and women) who have flown into space on orbital or suborbital launches, she is the 711th space traveler (as tallied by the Association of Space Explorers).
A native of West Virginia, Calandrelli is the first woman and third person to represent her home state in space (after NASA astronauts Jon McBride and Drew Morgan).
“I can’t believe that [a] girl from Morgantown, West Virginia, gets to represent the 100th woman in history to fly to space.” wrote Calandrelli.
Although the price of her seat remains undisclosed, Calandrelli did say that she paid “just as much as the others” on New Shepard through the support of “20 to 30 organizations, brands and people.” In return, she offered to do sponsored posts on her online channels and deliver speeches.
The first woman to fly into space (and first woman to enter orbit) was Soviet-era cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, who launched in 1963. NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg became the 50th woman to leave Earth’s atmosphere in 2008.
The first woman to launch on a suborbital flight was Beth Moses, Virgin Galactic’s chief astronaut instructor, whose first of six SpaceShipTwo missions (to date) was in 2019. The first woman to fly on New Shepard was Wally Funk, an aviator and member of the so-called “Mercury 13,” who underwent the same medical tests as NASA’s first astronauts in the early 1960s.
Among the personal items that Calandrelli took with her to space was a montage showing photos of the 99 women who flew before her.
“I wanted to honor how they paved the way for women like me and how they’ve made it possible for the next generation of girls who want to reach for the stars to actually grab a few,” she said.
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