Michael Strahan Set For Space Trip With Blue Origin

The “Good Morning America” host is strapped in alongside Laura Shepard Churchley, the oldest daughter of America’s first astronaut and 4 others who paid for this out-of-this-world experience.

As a TV host, Strahan covered Blue Origin’s first space launch with passengers, which took off back in July and says he’s been hooked on human space travel, ever since. The New Shepard rocket was originally supposed to take off for the 10-minute flight on Thursday but Bezos gave it the yellow light, due to high wind.

This Blue Origin flight is the third launch with people on board. Astronaut Strahan and others had lots of training before they boarded. The TV host says he went to the Blue Origin facility for a week-and-a-half training prior to today’s launch.

If taking a trip to space isn’t already a good enough incentive, apparently all passengers get some sort of stipend and Strahan says he is donating his to The Boys & Girls Club.

The flight will follow a similar profile to Shatner’s flight and Bezos before him, spending just 10 minutes off the ground. Suborbital flights differ greatly from orbital flights of the type most of us think of when we think of spaceflight. Blue Origin’s New Shepard flights will be brief, up-and-down trips, though they will go more than 62 miles above Earth, which is widely considered to be the edge of outer space.

This will mark the third of what Blue Origin hopes will be many space tourism launches, carrying wealthy customers to the edge of space. It could be a line of business that helps to fund Blue Origin’s other, more ambitious space projects, which include developing a 300-foot-tall rocket powerful enough to blast satellites into orbit and a lunar lander.