Surely it is fair to say that Jeff Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin, likes a commercial space trip with a few famous, or at least noteworthy, faces?

In that case, it might be safe to assume that Pete Davidson not joining the next suborbital rocket trip to the edge of space has left him and the company feeling a little sorry.

Kim Kardashian’s controversial comedian boyfriend suddenly dropped out of the mission after a schedule change pushed the flight back by a week.

The space trip has been rescheduled for this Thursday.

But the company saved the day by giving Davidson’s seat to Gary Lai, the company’s longtime chief architect:

Image: YouTube screenshot / Blue Origin

Lai, perhaps a more deserving space passenger, worked on the rocket he’ll fly on, the New Shepard, according to CNN:

He’s been credited as the “architect of the New Shepard system,” and holds multiple patents related to the launch vehicle, according to a statement from Blue Origin. During his time as an undergraduate at Cornell University, Lai studied under the prolific late astronomer Carl Sagan.

Lai will be the second Asian-American passenger to voyage to the edge of space on a suborbital spaceflight, after Virgin Galactic employee and Indian-American aeronautical engineer Sirisha Bandla joined Richard Branson on his spaceflight last year. The industry is running abruptly into societal issues for largely being accessible to the white, male and wealthy, so far.

The trip will take him and five other (paying) customers (because Lai is going for free) into space for approximately 10 minutes.

As usual, the flight will go about 96 kilometres above the Earth’s surface to the edge of space, where everyone on board will experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see Earth as a relatively tiny speck.

As for the price of the ticket? Nobody knows for sure, but let’s just say it is probably somewhere between $28 million (the price of last year’s Blue Origin auction ticket) and $450 000, the price for a seat aboard Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.

Definitely not an amount any average consumer will be able to afford anytime soon.

Let’s see who’s who in the latest Blue Origin crew:

Image: Blue Origin

The other passengers include Marty Allen, an angel investor and former chief executive of a party supply store and closet design company, who has dreamed of going to space since he was a kid.

There’s also Jim Kitchen, an entrepreneur and faculty member of the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.

As an avid traveller on Earth, Kitchen is looking forward to broadening his horizons:

 

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A post shared by Jim Kitchen (@jim.kitchen)

Then there’s George Nield, the president and founder of Commercial Space Technologies:

Some folks have asked me why I would want to go on a suborbital spaceflight. Here’s my answer: To see black sky and the curvature of the Earth, and to experience the “magic” of weightlessness. pic.twitter.com/Ik620Iyfgl

— Dr. George C. Nield (@DrGeorgeNield) March 15, 2022

Since his company promotes and facilitates commercial space activities, he has a vested interest in going to the edge of space.

Last but not least is space fanatic Sharon Hagle and her husband, Marc Hagle.

Here they are experiencing microgravity during a zero-G flight in May from the Kennedy Space Centre:

Image: Florida Today

She is the founder of SpaceKids Global, a nonprofit aiming to encourage youngsters, mostly girls, to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics.

Marc is a chief executive of a residential and commercial property development firm in Florida.

They’ll be able to brag about being the first married couple to jointly fly on commercial spaceflight.

Enjoy, guys.