German paraplegic engineer Michaela Benthaus becomes first wheelchair user in space

Summary

The paraplegic engineer Michaela Benthaus of Germany flew to space as Blue Origin’s New Shepard mission launched from West Texas on Dec. 20, 2025, the company said. Benthaus, who was severely injured in a mountain bike accident seven years earlier, became the first wheelchair user to make the trip as she sought a “dream-come-true” view of Earth from on high.

In the run-up to the flight, Blue Origin described an accessibility-focused approach for the autonomous New Shepard capsule and the recovery process afterward. The company said the wheelchair user did not travel in her wheelchair during the ascent, instead leaving it on the desert landing area and later regaining access to it after touchdown.

“We couldn’t help but laugh,” Benthaus said shortly after landing, calling it “the coolest experience.” According to the company, the capsule soared more than 65 miles (105 kilometers) during the flight, which lasted about 10 minutes, and Benthaus said she tried to turn upside down once in space.

Blue Origin said the mission required only minor adjustments to accommodate Benthaus because the capsule was designed with accessibility in mind. Jake Mills, an engineer at Blue Origin who trained the crew and assisted them on launch day, said the company built the system “making it more accessible to a wider range of people than traditional spaceflight.”

For Benthaus specifically, Blue Origin said it added a patient transfer board so she could move between the capsule’s hatch and her seat. After recovery, the recovery team unrolled a carpet on the desert floor to provide immediate access to the wheelchair, which she left behind at liftoff, the company said.

At the launch pad, Blue Origin said an elevator was in place to take passengers up roughly seven stories to the capsule sitting atop the rocket. Benthaus practiced in advance for the transfer, with Hans Koenigsmann, who helped organize the trip and along with Blue Origin sponsored it, taking part in the design and testing. Their ticket prices were not divulged.

Benthaus, 33, is part of the European Space Agency’s graduate trainee program in the Netherlands. She previously experienced snippets of weightlessness during a parabolic airplane flight out of Houston in 2022 and later took part in a simulated space mission in Poland, according to the report.

Blue Origin framed the flight as a private mission for Benthaus that did not involve the European Space Agency, even as ESA this year cleared reserve astronaut John McFall, an amputee, for a future International Space Station flight. In Benthaus’s case, her spinal cord injury meant she could not walk at all, and Koenigsmann was designated as her emergency helper before the flight; the report said Koenigsmann and Mills lifted her out of the capsule and down the steps at the end of the flight.

Benthaus also said she wanted the trip to extend beyond personal experience. She told reporters, “You should never give up on your dreams, right?” and later urged that accessibility be improved both in space and on Earth, saying outsiders were not always as inclusive as people in her “space bubble.”

Besides Benthaus and Koenigsmann, the mission carried other passengers, including business executives and investors, as well as a computer scientist. Blue Origin said the flight raised the company’s list of space travelers to 86, and it credited Jeff Bezos, the company’s founder, with creating Blue Origin in 2000 and launching its first passenger spaceflight in 2021.