The NS-31 mission crew prepares to board the New Shepard spacecraft - Image cut from Live Blue Origin
169 lotus seeds fly into space with Amanda Nguyen
At 8:00 a.m. on April 14 local time (8:00 p.m. the same day in Vietnam), Vietnamese-American astronaut Amanda Nguyen and members of the NS-31 mission began entering the New Shepard spacecraft of the Blue Origin space tourism company.
At exactly 8:30 a.m. (8:30 p.m. Vietnam time), New Shepard officially departed from launch site No. 1 in Texas, carrying the six female members of NS-31 across the Kármán line - the space boundary at an altitude of 100 km above sea level.
This event officially made Amanda Nguyen the first Vietnamese and Southeast Asian woman to travel into space.
Besides Amanda Nguyen, the remaining members of the NS-31 mission are: Lauren Sánchez - journalist, pilot and fiancee of billionaire Jeff Bezos, Katy Perry - famous pop singer, Gayle King - host of the TV show "CBS Mornings", Aisha Bowe - aerospace engineer and former employee of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Kerianne Flynn - independent film producer.
This is New Shepard's 11th crewed flight, and the first with an all-female crew since Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova flew solo into space in 1963 aboard the Vostok 6 spacecraft.
The suborbital flight lasted about 11 minutes, allowing the crew to experience weightlessness, admire the curve of the Earth and the darkness of space before landing safely by parachute.
The moment New Shepard takes off with the NS-31 crew into space - Photo: AFP/Blue Origin
Notably, previously, the Vietnam Space Center (VNSC) - Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology announced that it had provided 169 lotus seeds (Nelumbo nucifera) to accompany Amanda Nguyen into space.
These lotus seeds were selected from the Center for Research and Development of Flowers and Ornamental Plants of the Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
They will return from their missions to open up research on the effects of space on growth, contributing to plant science and space exploration.
Amanda Nguyen's happy moment after stepping out of the New Shepard spacecraft, successfully completing her space journey - Photo cut from Live Blue Origin
New Shepard spacecraft before departure on the morning of April 14 - Photo: Blue Origin
Flight plan for Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft launches - Photo: Blue Origin
Moment of Courage
Amanda Nguyen (born 1991 in California, USA) is a bioastronautics researcher. She graduated from Harvard University and has conducted research at the Harvard Center for Astrophysics, MIT, NASA, and the International Space Science Institute (IAS).
After being raped, she put her dream of becoming an astronaut on hold for more than 10 years to fight for victims of sexual violence. She is the founder of Rise, an organization that fights for the civil rights of victims of abuse.
For her work advocating for victims of sexual violence, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, and was named Woman of the Year 2022 by Time magazine.
"As the first female astronaut from Vietnam and Southeast Asia, Amanda's flight is a symbol of reconciliation between the United States and Vietnam and will highlight science as a tool for peace," according to Blue Origin.
Amanda Nguyen shared on social media about her feelings before the flight, saying that courage comes in many different forms, such as the moment of being launched from a rocket, or when testifying before the United Nations or the US Congress.
“While on that launch pad, I will think about every moment of courage that got me here,” she wrote.
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