Laura Shepard Churchley flew to space, just like father Alan Shepard did 60 years ago
The daughter of astronaut and Granite Stater Alan Shepard went to space Saturday.
Laura Shepard Churchley was on the third Blue Origin flight. She was with five other passengers, including Good Morning America anchor Michael Strahan.
The spacecraft she flew on is called New Shepard after her dad.
The ten-minute flight was five minutes less than Alan Shepard's Mercury flight in 1961.
"It is just so exciting, and I know that Laura and Julie and Alice, his daughters' lives were just so changed by his flights," said McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center executive director Jeanne Gerulskis. "It is so inspiring for his oldest daughter to get to go up."
Shepard Churchley brought a piece of her dad's Freedom 7 capsule, mementos from his Apollo 14 mission and golf balls in his honor to the flight.