Blue Origin spaceflights’ latest superlative: tallest astronaut Michael Strahan

The youngest, the oldest, the first. Blue Origin suborbital flights on its New Shepard rocket keep checking boxes to set new space records.

The latest will see Michael Strahan at 6 feet 5 inches tall becoming the tallest person in space.

The roughly 11-minute trips that send passengers up past 62 miles of altitude don’t require much in the way of training as the flights are automated from launch to landing, so a wider range of people will be heading up to space.

That includes Strahan, 50, the current co-anchor of ABC’s “Good Morning America,” a former 15-year NFL player who helped the New York Giants win the Super Bowl in 2007. In a video that aired on GMA when Strahan announced he was going to be flying on Blue Origin’s third flight with passengers, he tested out the seat he’ll be riding in on Thursday, Dec. 9.

“Oh this is comfortable, I feel like I’m at my barber,” Strahan said.

In the aftermath of the announcement, Strahan jokingly tackled the other side of the height spectrum when Eli Manning suggested he could bring diminutive comedian and movie star Kevin Hart, who is reportedly just over 5 feet, 2 inches tall, up into space with him (and leave him there).

“I’d love to but unfortunately, @KevinHart4real doesn’t pass the height requirement for space! LOL,” Strahan said on his Twitter account.

For the record, that is not a restrictive height for space. The shortest person in space has been Nancy J. Currie-Gregg, who at 5 feet, 0 inches tall flew on four space shuttle missions. The current record holder for tallest in space is Jim Wetherbee, a 6-foot, 4-inch veteran of six space shuttle flights.

For Blue Origin flights specifically, the company does have height and weight ranges in place, but that is just a conversation starter.

“Exceedance of those ranges triggers further evaluation. After further input from Michael, including in-seat evaluation, Blue determined he could fly and Michael agreed to proceed,” the company stated in an email.

The New Shepard rocket, named after the first American in space, Alan Shepard, has made 18 previous trips into space, with the first humans including company founder Jeff Bezos flying up in July.

That trip also featured the youngest person to ever fly into space: 18-year-old Oliver Daemen. In October, the rocket flew on its second mission taking up with it 90-year-old William Shatner, the oldest person to fly into space. Shatner surpassed 82-year-old Wally Funk, still the oldest woman in space, who flew with Bezos, and beat out previous record holder, 77-year-old John Glenn.

For this third mission, Strahan will be joined by Alan Shepard’s oldest daughter, Laura Shepard Churchley as invited crew for the flight as well as four other paying members. The company has not revealed what customers are paying.

Among those customers will be the first parent-child duo to fly into space: Lane Bess and his child Cameron Bess. The younger Bess, a social media influencer on Twitch and YouTube, identifies as pansexual and is bringing a pride flag into space.

The New Shepard capsule will be making its first full flight with six passengers. The previous two flights carried only four. Both Blue Origin and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic have made their first trips with paying space tourists on board this year. Branson flew into space just days before Bezos.

Bezos, though, remains the richest person to make it to space, although that could change if and when SpaceX founder Elon Musk ventures outside Earth’s atmosphere someday.

Strahan covered Bezos’ launch for GMA and talked to the billionaire after the landing.

“I’m enamored with what you’ve done. I wouldn’t have considered doing this until I saw you today,” Strahan said.

At the time, he did not know Blue Origin was going to invite him for a future flight, he said.

“They approached me. They asked if I wanted to be a crew member, and without hesitation, I said yes,” Strahan told his GMA co-anchors. “I wanted to go to space.”