A Frenchman who founded a brewery in Savoie, Sylvain Chiron, is due to briefly go into space on Sunday aboard a Blue Origin rocket which will take off from the United States, the American company announced on Tuesday May 14. Blue Origin’s space tourism flights last only about ten minutes but allow passengers to admire the curvature of the Earth and briefly float in the capsule.
The company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos has already taken 31 people above the Karman line, which marks the boundary of space at an altitude of 100 km according to international convention. Many are wealthy customers, although the ticket price is not known. The rocket takes off vertically from West Texas, propels the capsule which detaches in flight, reaches space then falls before being slowed by parachutes.
Sylvain Chiron, born in the Alps and based in Savoie, founded the Brasserie du Mont-Blanc there. Passionate about aviation and skiing, he studied in the United States and Japan, according to Blue Origin. The company points out that during several summers in Florida, he was able to observe the takeoffs of space shuttles – before this program was stopped in 2011. His participation in the Blue Origin flight was announced at the beginning of April, but the takeoff date of this mission, named NS-25, was confirmed on Tuesday. The shooting window will open on Sunday at 8:30 a.m. local time (1:30 p.m. GMT).
It is a “childhood dream that I never imagined I would achieve,” wrote Sylvain Chiron in a message published on Facebook at the beginning of April, adding that he felt “privileged” and “excited” at the idea of becoming the 12th Frenchman to make the trip. Ten French astronauts went into space. In 2023, the Franco-Italian Ketty Maisonrouge flew with a company competing with Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic.
Sylvain Chiron will board the rocket with five other people, including Ed Dwight, born in 1933, and who was expected to become the first African-American to go into space, but ultimately never got the chance. opportunity. Ed Dwight subsequently became a sculptor and his work, exhibited in museums, highlights African-American history and personalities, emphasizes Blue Origin.
This will be the company’s first crewed flight of its New Shepard rocket since August 2022. In September of the same year, an uncrewed flight ended in the crash of the rocket’s propulsion stage. The automatic ejection system of the capsule – where the passengers are during a manned flight – was triggered and it fell to the ground, slowed down by its parachutes. After an investigation by the American aviation regulator (FAA), Blue Origin made modifications and carried out a new uncrewed flight in December 2023.
Jeff Bezos himself participated in the first manned flight of the New Shepard rocket in July 2021. Since then, the machine has also transported the actor playing the iconic Captain Kirk from the Star Trek series, William Shatner, then aged 90 years.
