Blue Origin Engineer Replaces Kim Kardashian's Girlfriend Flying Into Space

Blue Origin engineer Gary Lai was finally appointed to fly into space. (photo: twitter @blueorigin)

JAKARTA - Blue Origin engineer Gary Lai has finally been appointed to replace comedian "Saturday Night Live" Pete Davidson on the space tourism company's newest flight, Monday, March 14.

Previously reported by Reuters, Davidson had pulled out of the flight, which was originally planned to be launched this week. The delay to March 29 is to run several more pre-flight tests on one of the spacecraft's subsystems.

The suborbital joyride, which lasts about 10 minutes from takeoff to landing, will rise to an altitude of about 350.000 feet (106 km). This will allow passengers to experience a few moments of weightlessness before descending back to Earth for parachute landing.

On March 29, #NewShepard Chief Architect Gary Lai will fly on the vehicle he’s spent 18 years designing, developing, testing, and flying. We can’t wait for Gary—a friend, mentor, and hero to all of us—to become Astronaut Gary Lai. Learn more: https://t.co/6HLHQOlf1I #NS20 pic.twitter.com/r8wze2u4y7

— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) March 21, 2022

Lai joined Blue Origin in 2004. He is the chief architect of the New Shepard spacecraft. It is a reusable rocket system that can carry astronauts and research payloads into space.

Other passengers including angler investor Marty Allen, real estate veteran Marc Hagle and his wife Sharon Hagle, University of North Carolina professor Jim Kitchen and George Nield, founder-president of Commercial Space Technologies, remain ready and slated to fly on this tourist mission.