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Blue Origin reveals crew names for fourth tourist space jump

The next suborbital flight of Jeff Bezos's New Shepard spacecraft will take place on March 29. Company employee Gary Lai and five other people will rise on board: Sharon and Mark Heigl, Marty Allen, Jim Kitchen and George Neild.

Gary Lai is the chief system architect for New Shepard. He joined Blue Origin in 2004 and was one of the company's first 20 employees. In addition to working on New Shepard, Lai "has been involved in product development, strategic planning and business development for all of Blue Origin's product lines, including the New Glenn rocket and the Blue Moon module," the company said.

Sharon Heigl is the founder of SpaceKids Global, an NGO that helps children learn and improve their STEAM (science, technology, education, art, and math) education and careers in space. Her husband Mark is the head of real estate development corporation Tricor International, which owns more than 1.6 million square meters. m of shopping centers, warehouses, medical facilities and other real estate in the United States.

Marty Allen is the former CEO of home organization and storage idea company California Closet Company and is now an angel investor and mentor.

Jim Kitchen is a professor at the Kenan-Flagler School of Business at the University of North Carolina and an entrepreneur. In the early 1980s, Kitchen was promoting low-orbit flight for an unnamed startup.

George Neild is president of Commercial Space Technologies, which aims to expand commercial spaceflight. He previously served as Flight Integration Manager at NASA and Assistant Administrator at the US Federal Aviation Administration. He has also held positions at Orbital Sciences Corporation, now part of Northrop Grumman, and at the US Air Force Academy.

This will be the 4th crewed flight of the New Shepard and the 20th in its entire history. The launch will take place at 9:30 am local time from the Blue Origin launch site in Texas.

Blue Origin reveals crew names for fourth tourist space jump