As 2021 draws to a close, for a brief time the number of private space travelers is nearly matching the number of professional astronauts in space, with commercial missions by Blue Origin and Space Adventures overlapping crewed flights underway aboard government-owned space stations to bring the total number of flyers to a record 19. The tally includes eight private citizens-six riding aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital spacecraft and two who chartered a Russian Soyuz flight from U.S.-based Space Adventures to the International Space Station (ISS). The commercial missions are a harbinger of what is expected to evolve in crewed spaceflight transportation over the next two years. Among the newly initiated was Laura Shepard Churchley, who was in eighth grade when her father, Alan Shepard, became the first U.S. astronaut to fly in space. His 15-min. suborbital ride on May 5,1961, serves as historical and technical context for Blue Origin's namesake New Shepard commercial flight service, which debuted last July.
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