German engineer Michaela Benthaus became the first person with paraplegia and the first wheelchair user to travel to space on December 20, 2025, joining a brief Blue Origin suborbital flight from West Texas. The mission marked a milestone for participation by people with disabilities in commercial human spaceflight.
New Shepard mission NS-37 lifted off at 8:15 a.m. local time, or 14:15 UTC, from property owned by Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos. The journey lasted about 11 minutes and reached an altitude of approximately 100 kilometres, around 62 miles. Passengers experienced a short period of weightlessness before the capsule returned to Earth.
Benthaus, 33, travelled with former German space engineer Hans Königsmann and four entrepreneurs from the United States. The launch was Blue Origin’s 16th crewed flight. The company has carried dozens of people on New Shepard, whose passengers have included singer Katy Perry and actor William Shatner.
Benthaus works as an engineer at the European Space Agency. She sustained a spinal injury in a mountain-bike accident at age 26 and now uses a wheelchair. After landing, she described the flight as an exceptional experience and said people should continue pursuing ambitions even when the chance of achieving them appears small.
Her comments also directed attention back to conditions on Earth. Benthaus said living with a disability after her accident had made the extent of inaccessibility clear to her. She called for facilities and environments that allow people with disabilities to participate fully, linking access to the broader goal of an inclusive society.
The mission was suborbital rather than an orbital expedition. New Shepard rose to the boundary region commonly used to describe the beginning of space, provided a brief microgravity interval and returned during the same short flight. The report did not claim that Benthaus entered orbit, piloted the vehicle or performed a scientific mission. Its significance lay in access to the flight and the precedent set by a passenger with paraplegia.
Commercial space companies have expanded the range of private participants able to make short trips beyond the atmosphere, although the evidence supplied no price for Benthaus’s seat or technical account of any cabin modifications. Blue Origin positions New Shepard in the space-tourism market and competes more broadly with companies including SpaceX. On the December 20 event date, Benthaus’s journey added a disability-access milestone to that emerging sector while she used the attention to argue for more inclusive design beyond spaceflight.
