First with Spinal Injury Reaches Space on Blue Origin

A German aerospace engineer who uses a wheelchair made history Saturday as the first person with a spinal cord injury to travel to space, joining five others on a brief suborbital flight aboard a Blue Origin rocket from West Texas.

Michaela Benthaus, 33, an engineer at the European Space Agency, lifted off at 8:15 a.m. local time on the company's New Shepard vehicle, a fully automated rocket that carries passengers above the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary of space at 100 kilometers, or about 62 miles, above Earth. The 10-minute journey allowed the crew to experience several minutes of weightlessness before the capsule detached, descended under parachutes, and landed gently in the Texas desert. Benthaus, who suffered her injury in a mountain biking accident in 2018, described the flight as transformative, saying in a post-landing video released by Blue Origin, "It was the coolest experience ever, honestly." She recounted laughing during the 65-mile ascent and attempting to turn upside down in zero gravity.

The trip marked Benthaus's realization of a long-held dream, one she initially believed was out of reach after her accident. She reached out via LinkedIn...