Michaela Benthaus is about to cross a threshold that no wheelchair user has crossed before. On December 18th, the aerospace engineer will launch aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket, climbing past the edge of Earth's atmosphere and into the weightlessness beyond. She'll be one of six passengers on the NS-37 mission—and she'll bring her favorite stuffed hippo with her.
Benthaus has used a wheelchair since 2018, when a mountain-biking accident left her with a spinal cord injury. That didn't redirect her career; it clarified her purpose. "I've always been passionate about space," she's said in interviews. Now she's about to live that passion at 62 miles above sea level, where the curvature of Earth becomes visible and gravity stops pretending to matter.
The mission matters beyond one person's dream, though it's worth starting there. For decades, space tourism has been framed as an exclusive club—fit, wealthy, able-bodied. Blue Origin's choice to include Benthaus signals something quieter but significant: that accessibility isn't an afterthought to exploration, it's part of how we expand who gets to explore.
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Start Your News DetoxThe other five passengers on NS-37 include investor Joey Hyde, aerospace engineer Hans Koenigsmann, entrepreneur Neal Milch, investor Adonis Pouroulis, and former SpaceX employee Jason Stansell. The mission patch they'll wear carries their stories woven into symbols: a spiral galaxy for Hyde's astrophysics work, a baobab tree for Pouroulis' roots, a "K" honoring Stansell's brother Kevin. And that hippo—Benthaus' favorite animal, heading to space.
This flight is one piece of Blue Origin's broader push to compete with SpaceX's dominance in the commercial space sector. The company is preparing its Mk1 lunar lander for a moon mission early next year, with a real chance it could be selected for NASA's Artemis III program. They've already launched their New Glenn orbital rocket twice and are exploring orbital data centers to handle the surging energy demands of AI infrastructure.
But on December 18th, the focus will be simpler: watching six people leave the ground, experiencing weightlessness for a few minutes, and returning changed by the view. The launch is scheduled for 9:30 am EST, and Blue Origin will stream it live. For Benthaus, it's the culmination of a career spent studying the systems that take us skyward. For everyone watching, it's a reminder that the future of space isn't narrower—it's wider.
