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A German woman engineer on Saturday became the first wheelchair user to blast into space. Photo: Courtesy — AP
HOUSTON:
A German woman engineer on Saturday became the first wheelchair user to blast into space, taking a brief ride on a Blue Origin flight.
The space company owned by American multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos launched its New Shepard suborbital mission at 8:15 am (1415 GMT) from its site in Texas.
Michaela Benthaus, an aerospace and mechatronics engineer at the European Space Agency, was among the passengers to cross the Karman line, the internationally recognized boundary of space, during the approximately 10-minute flight.
Benthaus suffered a spinal cord injury after a mountain biking accident and now uses a wheelchair.
“After my accident, I really, really figured out how inaccessible our world still is” for people with disabilities, she said in a video released by the company.
