Saturday Night Live actor Pete Davidson will travel to the edge of space next week as part of Blue Origin’s next spaceflight, the company announced on Monday.
Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos, said on Monday that it will launch its fourth flight with human passengers on March 23. Mr. Davidson will be one of six passengers on the New Shepard rocket, which will make its 20th flight.
Mr. Bezos, the founder of Amazon and one of the richest people in the world, was a passenger on the company’s first human flight last July. Earlier in the month, another private space company, Virgin Galactic, flew its founder Richard Branson to the edge of space and back.
Davidson, 28, joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 2014. He has also acted in films, including the 2020 semi-autobiographical film The King of Staten Island. He could not be contacted for comment on Monday.
On Monday, a spokeswoman for Blue Origin said Mr Davidson would fly as a “guest of honor” while the other five passengers would be paying customers. The spokeswoman did not say how many others were charged with joining the flight.
Mr. Davidson will be the latest celebrity passenger to travel to the edge of space with Blue Origin.
In October, 90-year-old Star Trek actor William Shatner became the oldest person to travel to space, crossing the Karman Line, the well-known boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space that runs about 62 miles above the planet’s surface. Mr. Shatner shared a New Shepard rocket with three other passengers during the mission, which lasted about 10 minutes.
In December, Good Morning America co-host Michael Strahan joined the Blue Origin flight along with five other people.
The flight carrying Mr. Davidson is scheduled to lift off from the Blue Origin launch site in West Texas at 8:30 a.m. local time on March 23.
Blue Origin said on Monday that there will be five other passengers on the flight in addition to Mr. Davidson: Marty Allen, Sharon and Mark Heigl, Jim Kitchen and George Neeld.
Mr. Allen is the former CEO of Party America, a party supply store. Mr. Hagle is President and CEO of Tricor International, a residential and commercial property development company. Ms. Hagle founded the non-profit group SpaceKids Global. Mr. Kitchen is Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship Practice at the Kenan-Flagler School of Business at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Dr. Nield is President of Commercial Space Technologies. From 2008 to 2018, he was Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation at the Federal Aviation Administration, the agency that regulates commercial launches like Blue Origin.
Kenneth Chang contributed reporting.