Michael Strahan Is Going to Space

Good Morning America co-host Michael Strahan is going to space next month. The former NFL star, who turned 50 on Sunday, will join Laura Shepard Churchley, the eldest daughter of astronaut Alan Shepard, on the Dec. 9 mission aboard the Blue Origin rocket, per the AP. The New Shepard spacecraft is named after her father, the first American in space. The flight also will carry four paying customers and will be the third by the New Shepard craft this year to shuttle humans to space. Blue Origin, the company headed by Jeff Bezos, hasn't disclosed the ticket price for paying customers. The 10-minute flight, five minutes less than Alan Shepard's 1961 Mercury flight, will launch from West Texas carrying six people, two more than the previous two flights this year with humans aboard.

Similar to previous jaunts, Strahan's flight is likely to include about three minutes of weightlessness and a view of the curvature of the Earth. Passengers are subjected to nearly 6 G's, or six times the force of Earth's gravity, as the capsule descends. Amazon founder Bezos and Star Trek star William Shatner flew to space on separate New Shepard flights this year. Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson went into space in his own rocket ship in July, followed by Bezos nine days later on Blue Origin's first flight with a crew. Elon Musk's SpaceX made its first private voyage in mid-September, though without Musk on board. (One of Shatner's fellow passengers was later killed in a plane crash.)