Michael Strahan was an out-of-this-world football talent, but who knew he’d ever actually leave earth?
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The HOF edge rusher spent 14 seasons giving NFL quarterbacks grief, then made an easy transition into the TV business. Now his next frontier is space: he’ll be headed into orbit in December, courtesy of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ space travel startup Blue Origin, as Strahan announced from his anchor’s chair Tuesday on Good Morning America.
From ABC News:
When he was later invited by Blue Origin to be a crew member, Strahan said he said yes “without hesitation.”
“I want to go to space,” he said. “I think being there at the first launch, it really was mind-blowing.”
A main factor in his desire to travel on Blue Origin, explained Strahan, is the opportunity to be a part of space exploration, which has produced discoveries in technology, science and innovations like the satellites that power cellphones.
The Dec. 9 flight will actually be Blue Origin’s third manned space voyage; the first included Bezos himself and the second, launched in October, had Star Trek star William Shatner aboard. Strahan said his conversation about going into space on Blue Origin began when he was sent by GMA to cover the first Blue Origin flight on July 20.
If you forgot that happened, maybe the description of the rocket will help your memory.
Blue Origin is one of three companies founded by super-rich white guys, all of whom have been criticized for spending billions to go into space while us commoners on Earth deal with climate change and a global pandemic that has killed more than 5 million people—in which much of Africa still doesn’t have vaccine access.
Tesla founder and crypto bro Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, had its first flight with an all-civilian crew in September, NBC News reported. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is charging $450,000 for a ticket to leave Earth for a few seconds.
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