Blue Origin NS-21 mission to include first Mexican-origin woman to space

Blue Origin, the aerospace company founded Jeff Bezos, has announced the crew flying on its NS-21 mission. The six passengers going on a spaceflight on the company’s New Shepard spacecraft will include electrical engineer and former NASA test lead Katya Echazarreta, who will become the first Mexican-born woman and youngest American woman to fly to space. She will be flying as part of Space for Humanity’s sponsored Citizen Astronaut Program.
The rest of the crew will include Blue Origin investor and NS-19 astronaut Evan Dick, business jet pilot Hamish Harding, civil production engineer Victor Correa Hespanha, venture capital Jaison Robinson and explorer and venture capital Victor Vescovo.
Blue Origin has not yet released a scheduled date for the spaceflight. It also hasn’t disclosed how much the passengers paid to fly on the mission. Usually, such opportunities to fly on private space flights are reserved for really wealthy passengers who can afford to pay their way there but one person has joined as part of Space for Humanity’s sponsored citizen astronaut program after following a rigorous application process, and another person’s seat was sponsored the Crypto Space Agency.

Below are the descriptions of the six crew members as given Blue Origin:
Katya Echazarreta
Echazaretta was born in Guadalajara, Mexico. According to Blue Origin, she is part of the mission to provide representation for women and minorities interested in STEM fields. She co-hosts the YouTube series Netflix IRL and “Electric Kat” on the CBS show “Mission Unstopabble”. She is also currently pursuing a Master’s degree in electrical and computer engineering at Johns Hopkins University after completing her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from UCLA in 2019.
The crew members of Blue Origin’s NS-21 mission. (Image credit: Blue Origin)
Evan Dick
Dick is an engineer, investor and Managing Member of Dick Holdings. At the completion of the mission, he will become the first person to fly aboard New Shepherd twice, after having flown on the NS-19 mission on December 11, 2021. He formerly served as a senior vice president for D E Shaw and as managing director of Highbridge Capital Management. He supports the Darwin Foundation, Population Relied International Corp and Starfighters Aerospace, either through volunteership or through charity.
Hamish Harding
Harding is the chairman of Action Aviation, a business jet brokerage company that he founded in 2005. He is also a business jet pilot. In 2019, he broke the round-the-world record in a Gulfstream G650ER for flying over the North and South poles with International Space Station commander Terry Virts. In 2021, he dived to a depth of 36,000 feet in a Challenger Deep, a two-person sub, with Victor Vescovo.

Victor Correa Hespanha
Correa is a 28-year-old civil production engineer from Brazil. His seat is sponsored the Crypto Space Agency, whose mission is to “combine the space industry’s technology with the innovation and financial power of the crypto markets to accelerate humankind’s off-world future.” He will also be the second Brazilian to ever fly to space.
Jaison Robinson
Robinson founded commercial real estate company JJM investments and co-founded Dream Variations Ventures, which invests in technology and sports start-ups. He is a scuba diver and a skydiver who has broken the sound barrier in a Mig-29 fighter jet. He has also spent a week hiking in Antarctica and climbed the tallest waterfall in the world in Venezuela.
Victor Vescovo
Vescovo is the cofounder of private equity investment firm Insight Equity. He has completed the “Explorer’s Grand Slam”, which entails summiting the world’s top seven peaks and skiing to the North and South Poles. He has also visited the deepest point in the world’s five oceans and executed the deepest wreck dive in hory. He holds degrees from Stanford, MIT, and Harvard Business School, and served 20 years in the US Navy Reserve.