On 20 December 2025, Michaela “Michi” Benthaus, an aerospace engineer from Germany, became the first person who uses a wheelchair to travel into space.
Benthaus works with the European Space Agency. She became paraplegic after a spinal cord injury in a mountain-biking accident seven years ago.
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Despite this, she continued pursuing her passion for aviation and space, including microgravity training flights and simulation missions.
She secured a seat on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket on their suborbital mission NS-37 launched from West Texas.
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The mission involved Benthaus and five other passengers on a roughly 10-minute flight that carried them beyond the Kármán line — the internationally recognised boundary of space around 100 kilometres above Earth.
She and her crewmates experienced several minutes of weightlessness and spectacular views of Earth’s curvature before safely landing back in the desert.
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Benthaus described the journey as “the coolest experience ever,” saying she laughed throughout the ascent and even tried turning upside down in zero gravity.
Blue Origin made minor modifications to assist her boarding and seating, including a patient transfer board extending from the capsule hatch so she could move from her wheelchair into the spacecraft.
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Reflecting on her flight, Benthaus said her long quest had taught her how inaccessible the world still can be for people with disabilities.
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