A rocket created by Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin took its fifth batch of passengers to the edge of space, including the first Mexican-born woman to be included in the journey.
A Blue Origin New Shepard rocket launches from Launch Site One in West Texas north of Van Horn on March 31, 2022
"Overview Effect"
At 9:26 a.m. ET, the 60-foot-tall suborbital rocket was launched from Blue Origin's West Texas facilities, lofting a group of six people more than 62 miles above the Earth's surface. It is widely regarded as the outer-space boundary and gives them a few minutes of microgravity before parachuting back to Earth.
According to CNN, the majority of the passengers paid an unknown amount for their seats. However, Katya Echazarreta, an engineer and science communicator from Guadalajara, Mexico, was chosen among hundreds of candidates to join this trip by a nonprofit called Space for Humanity.
The organization's purpose is to send "extraordinary leaders" to space and allow them to experience the overview effect, a phenomenon that astronauts regularly report experiencing when observing the Earth from space.
Echazarreta is the second Mexican to fly to space after Rodolfo Neri Vela, a scientist who joined one of NASA's Space Shuttle missions back in 1985. But ultimately, she is the first Mexican woman to go to space!
Echazarreta told CNN in an interview that she was able to experience that "overview effect" in her own way.
"And the only thing I could think of when I came back down was that I need people to see this. I need Latinas to see this. And I think that it just completely reinforced my mission to continue getting primarily women and people of color up to space and doing whatever it is they want to do," she stated.
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"Main Breadwinner"
Echazarreta said she was the main breadwinner for her family, particularly when she was 17 until 18, by working at McDonald's.
She is now pursuing an engineering master's degree at Johns Hopkins University. She formerly worked in California at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She also has a TikTok following of over 330,000 followers, hosts a science-focused YouTube series, and anchors the weekend CBS show "Mission Unstoppable."
Her contributions were chosen by Space for Humanity, which was created in 2017 by Dylan Taylor, a space investor who recently joined a Blue Origin voyage himself.
Rachel Lyons, the organization's executive director, said in a statement that they were looking for leaders with "a sphere of influence," and Echazarreta possessed that.
After working at JPL and not seeing other engineers who looked like her, Echazarreta decided to become a public figure and represent her community.
Echazarreta sailed with Evan Dick, an investor who had previously flown with Blue Origin in December and was the first to become a return flier on the Blue Origin voyage on Saturday.
Hamish Harding, the chairman of a jet brokerage firm based in the United Arab Emirates; Jaison Robinson, the founder of a commercial real estate firm; Victor Correa Hespanha, a 28-year-old who purchased an NFT from a group called The Crypto Space Agency, were among the other passengers; and Victor Vescovo, the co-founder of a private equity investment firm, were among the other passengers.
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Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla
