Saturday Night Live comedian Pete Davidson will ride on Blue Origin’s fourth human flight to space, slated for later this month.
Davidson—alongside Marty Allen, Jim Kitchen, Dr. George Nield, and Sharon and Marc Hagle—will lift off early in the morning on March 23. This will mark Blue Origin’s 20th flight for the New Shepard program.
The Crew
Pete Davidson
Davidson, a comedian and actor, joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 2014 and has starred in multiple movies. In 2020, Davidson earned a nomination for Comedy Movie Star of 2020 at the 46th People’s Choice Awards for his film The King of Staten Island. Davidson also recently appeared in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. He’s currently part of a controversial feud with Kanye West, after entering a relationship with West’s ex-wife, Kim Kardashian.
Marty Allen
Former CEO of Party America, Allen is an avid aviation enthusiast, completing his first solo flight at the age of 16. Allen is also the former CEO of California Closet Company. The future space tourist also mentors CEOs throughout the industry with his board activities.
Sharon Hagle
Hagle is the founder of SpaceKids Global, a nonprofit organization dedicated to inspiring students, particularly young girls, to pursue STEAM+ education. The organization partners with Girl Scouts of Citrus County, Florida to conduct competitions and annual challenges to inspire students to pursue career paths in the space industry. To this day, Hagle’s work has reached nearly 100,000 globally.
Marc Hagle
Hagle, who is married to Sharon Hagle, is the president and CEO of Tricor International, a residential and commercial property development corporation. Marc Hagle’s leadership has led to the company’s development and ownership of more than 17.4 million square feet of properties around the United States. He and his wife are experienced philanthropists for multiple charities.
Jim Kitchen
Kitchen, an educator and well-traveled entrepreneur, has dreamt of space since NASA’s Apollo missions. In the 1980s, Kitchen spent part of his college career promoting low-Earth orbit space strips for a startup, and eventually served as faculty for the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School since 2010. The entrepreneur has visited all 193 United Nations-recognized countries.
George Nield
Nield serves as president of Commercial Space Technologies, LLC, where he works to promote commercial space activities. Previously, Nield served as associate administrator for the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, where he signed off on and regulated all commercial space launch activities. Nield has also served as an assistant professor and research director at the U.S. Air Force Academy.
The mission, dubbed NS-20, is currently scheduled for March 23 at 8:30 a.m. CDT and will take off from Launch Site One in West Texas. A livestream of the launch will be made available on Blue Origin’s website.
As the launch approaches, stick with FLYING for more updates.
