Blue Origin's next flight carrying first-ever wheelchair user to space
06 Dec 2025

Blue Origin is preparing for its upcoming suborbital flight, NS-37. The mission will take six passengers to the edge of space and back.

One of these passengers is Michaela "Michi" Benthaus, who could become the first-ever wheelchair user in space.

The exact launch date for this historic journey has not been announced yet.

Michi's journey to becoming a space traveler
Background

Benthaus was paralyzed from the waist down after a mountain biking accident in 2018. Despite her condition, she remained passionate about space travel.

In 2022, she was selected by AstroAccess for a parabolic flight, where she conducted accessibility experiments in weightlessness.

Since then, Michi has completed 18 parabolas and participated in groundbreaking accessibility experiments aimed at ensuring that differently-abled individuals can anchor themselves securely in microgravity environments.

Michi's current work and AstroAccess's mission
Ongoing projects

Currently, Michi is a trainee at the European Space Agency (ESA) and works at the TUM School of Engineering and Design in Munich, Germany.

AstroAccess, a SciAccess project founded in 2021, aims to promote disability inclusion in human space exploration.

The organization has conducted five microgravity missions with disabled scientists, veterans, students, athletes and artists demonstrating their skills on parabolic flights with Zero Gravity Corporation.

Upcoming flight is a historic milestone
Significance

Former NASA official Alan Ladwig has called the upcoming suborbital launch of Michi "a historical flight."

He noted that back in 1985, a paraplegic was a National Finalist for the Journalist in Space Program but was deemed too dangerous to fly.

Now, with the ESA's Parastronaut project and AstroAccess's parabolic flights, times have changed significantly.