U.S. Space & Rocket Center to host Blue Origin flight launch party on Saturday
Two Space Camp alumnae on board
HUNTSVILLE – The U. S. Space & Rocket Center is celebrating the launch of Blue Origin’s New Shepard-32 mission with a blue-themed launch party Saturday, May 31 beginning at 8 a.m. Blue Origin’s human-crewed suborbital flight will have two Space Camp alumnae on board!
Doors open at 8 a.m., with a special general admission price of $20 for adults and $15 for children available between 8 and 9 a.m. The launch window opens at 8:30 a.m. Guests are encouraged to wear blue in support of Blue Origin, which builds and tests engines here in the Rocket City.
The NS-32 crew of six includes Space Camp alumnae Dr. Gretchen Green and Aymette (Amy) Medina Jorge. Dr. Green attended Space Camp four times as a child and was a Space Camp counselor in later years. She has served as chair of the Space Camp Alumni Association and currently sits on the U.S. Space & Rocket Center Foundation Board. She is a radiologist, educator, explorer, and life-long space enthusiast.
Medina Jorge, a middle- and high-school STEM teacher from Galveston, Texas, attended Space Academy for Educators and has also brought children to Space Camp as a teacher. She has led more than 60 space experiments and zero-gravity projects, including flying biometric sensors developed by her students and performing in-flight 3D printing as part of a parabolic Zero-G flight.
The launch party takes place in the “Dare to Explore: Frontiers of Space” exhibit where Blue Origin’s BE-3U and BE-4 engines are on display.