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New Frontier

A woman in a blue flight suit sits in the open doorway of a space capsule resting on the ground in a desert.
COURTESY BLUE ORIGIN

Michaela Benthaus is an engineer from Germany. On December 20, she became the first wheelchair user in space. Benthaus rode aboard a Blue Origin capsule rocket with five other passengers. The capsule blasted off from Van Horn, Texas. It carried its passengers to the edge of space, and returned to Earth after about 10 minutes. After landing, Benthaus told the AP she laughed all the way up. “It was the coolest experience,” she said.