The first wheelchair user flies into space

A German woman engineer has become 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 local time 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. The small, fully automated rocket took off vertically, and the capsule carrying the tourists then detached in flight before gently descending back to the Texas desert, slowed by parachutes. It was the 16th crewed flight for Blue Origin, which has for years offered space tourism flights -- the price isn't public -- using its New Shepard rocket.