Blue Origin to fly SNL star Pete Davidson to space next week

(Reuters) -Jeff Bezos’ astro-tourism company Blue Origin will fly “Saturday Night Live” star Pete Davidson to suborbital space next week.

Pete Davidson poses at the red carpet of the 44th Kennedy Center Honors, at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, U.S, December 5, 2021. REUTERS/Tom Brenner/File Photo

The 28-year-old comedian will be part of the fourth human flight to space aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft, the company said on Monday. The 10-minute flight will lift off from a Texas launch facility on March 23.

Davidson, an honorary guest on the flight, will be joined by five paying customers. They include investor Marty Allen, real estate veteran Marc Hagle and his wife Sharon Hagle, University of North Carolina professor Jim Kitchen and George Nield, the president of Commercial Space Technologies.

“The King of Staten Island” actor is the latest celebrity to take the trip to the edge of space, following in the footsteps of 90-year-old “Star Trek” actor William Shatner and “Good Morning America” host Michael Strahan. The eldest daughter of U.S. astronaut Alan Shepard, 74-year-old Laura Shepard Churchley, flew to space in December.

The spacecraft itself is named after Alan Shepard, who in 1961 made history as the second person and first American to travel into space – a 15-minute suborbital flight as one of NASA’s original “Mercury Seven” astronauts.

Bezos flew to space on Blue Origin’s inaugural flight in July last year with his brother Mark Bezos, trailblazing octogenarian female aviator Wally Funk and 18-year-old Oliver Daeman, a Dutch high school graduate and beneficiary of a $28 million auction sweepstake.

(Reporting by Eva Mathews in Bengaluru)