By Lisa Carolin
When Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and three other people went to space July 20 inside New Shepard, there was a Chelsea connection.
The historic flight, which took place on the 52nd anniversary of the first moon landing in 1969, occurred in a spacecraft built by Bezos’ rocket company, Blue Origin.
Four citizens – Jeff Bezos and his brother, Mark, (the first brothers in space) 82-year-old Wally Funk (the oldest person to go into space) and 18-year old Oliver Daemen (youngest person to travel into space) took a historic less than 15-minute ride and landed safely back on earth from a launch pad in West Texas.
Here on earth, Domingo Hermosillo, a 1988 Chelsea High School graduate, was cheering them on. He was instrumental in the development of the spacecraft, having worked at Blue Origin for the last 15 years.
His parents, Hazel and Domingo Hermosillo, who live in Dexter Township, said that Domingo has looked forward to this very emotional moment since he was hired at Blue Origin.
The company plans two more crewed flights this year and additional ones in 2022.
