The primary three ladies to fly into space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft have been honored with their very personal bobbleheads.
The limited edition figurines (opens in new tab), which function the spring-loaded nodding heads of economic astronauts Wally Funk, Audrey Powers and Laura Shepard Churchley, at the moment are available from Blue Origin’s online shop (opens in new tab). The bobbleheads are boxed in mission-specific packaging and retail for $34.95 every.
Along with capturing the likeness of every lady, the Funk, Powers and Churchley bobbleheads depict their topic within the blue flight swimsuit that they wore for his or her 10-minute-long suborbital spaceflights, full with title tag and miniature mission patch. Every 7-inch (18 centimeters) statuette is mounted to a black base that additionally shows the astronaut’s title.
Funk is modeled together with her arms outstretched, recreating the pose she struck after her NS-16 flight. One of many so-called “Mercury 13” female pilots (opens in new tab) who privately underwent the identical medical exams as NASA’s “Unique 7” Mercury astronauts within the Sixties, Funk lastly reached space in July 2021. She flew with three others, including Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos (opens in new tab), on the corporate’s first crewed launch. Funk, who was 82 on the time of her flight, holds the report for the oldest lady to fly into space.
In images: Blue Origin’s 1st New Shepard passenger launch with Jeff Bezos
Powers flew on NS-18 in October 2021, the identical flight that included actor William Shatner of “Star Trek” fame (opens in new tab). As Blue Origin’s vp for mission and flight operations, Powers grew to become the corporate’s first worker astronaut. Her figurine contains her carrying the customized Omega Speedmaster wristwatch that Blue Origin items to every of its New Shepard crew members.
“I am so grateful I had the chance to see the Earth from space, and I want everybody might share in that have,” Powers said in a statement (opens in new tab) launched by Blue Origin.
Churchley’s bobblehead contains her carrying two rings, together with her father’s Naval Academy class ring (opens in new tab), which he flew to the moon in 1971 after which she returned to space on NS-19 (opens in new tab) in December 2021. Churchley is the daughter of Alan Shepard (opens in new tab), the primary U.S. astronaut to fly in space, the commander of Apollo 14 and the late namesake for Blue Origin’s New Shepard launch car.
The bobbleheads are a brand new providing for Blue Origin, which additionally provides company-branded attire, mission patches, New Shepard scale fashions and merchandise for its nonprofit academic and advocacy group, Membership for the Future.
So far, Blue Origin has launched six human spaceflights and a total of 31 folks (one particular person flew twice). In September 2022, the corporate suffered a launch failure on its twenty third New Shepard mission, an uncrewed flight with solely science experiments and cargo aboard. Blue Origin is predicted to renew flights in 2023.
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