Michael Strahan's officially an astronaut!
The Good Morning America host and five others successfully completed their mission to space Saturday aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket after blasting off from the Launch Site One facility in West Texas. It's Blue Origin's third human flight, and the company's first full capsule with six crew members.
Strahan, who wore his Super Bowl ring for the mission, was joined by Laura Shepard Churchley, the daughter of the nation's first astronaut, Alan Shepard. The other crew members were four paying customers -- Voyager Space CEO Dylan Taylor, aerospace volunteer pilot Evan Dick and billionaire Lane Bess and his son, Cameron.
According to official statistics, the entire flight lasted 10 minutes, 13 seconds. The New Shepard also reached maximum ascent velocity of 2,244 miles per hour.
After safely landing in the Texas desert, Amazon chief Jeff Bezos met the crew as they hopped off the capsule. Bezos greeted and hugged everyone before handing the crew their Blue Origin astronaut pins.
Shortly after landing, Strahan was visibly elated from the experience. "I wanna go back," he was heard saying after exiting the capsule. He also told the people on the ground, "You got to get that perspective." Strahan later joked about the impact G-force had on him. "The Gs. It's not a facelift. It's a face drop," he said. "I know what I'm going to look like at 85."
The latest mission, which had been postponed Thursday due to weather conditions, comes nearly two months after William Shatner became the oldest person ever to reach space. Bezos, his brother and several others went back in July.
No word if Strahan actually wore a diaper on the flight. He joked as much while on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last week.
"I had to fly the other day, and I'm looking at the thing and it tells you that you're 43,000 feet and I'm going, 'Man, this way up here. Look at this!' And then I realized this is nothing. So I might wear a diaper!" he quipped.
For context, the crew capsule soared 347,580 feet above ground level.
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