‘An out of body experience’: UNC professor travels to space and back in 10 minutes
Atop a fiery cloud bursting from an automated rocket, UNC-Chapel Hill professor and entrepreneur Jim Kitchen traveled to outer space and then back Thursday, fulfilling a dream that he’s had since watching NASA’s Apollo rockets launch as a child.
Kitchen sat in a gumdrop-shaped capsule of a rocket ship as part of the crew of Blue Origin’s New Shepard mission, which took about 10 minutes.
“That was an out of body experience,” Kitchen said, standing outside the capsule in the west Texas desert after returning from space.
After liftoff, the crew of six traveled 2,300 miles per hour in the automated space vehicle facing strong g-forces along the way.
“And you feel every bit of that,” Kitchen said.
They went about 65 miles above the earth to pass the Kármán line, which is the official international border line between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space.
‘It is just breathtaking’
Once there, time stops, Kitchen said.
“It’s like this moment in time where you see this beautiful earth and the blackness of the universe,” Kitchen said.
He said it was the blackest black he has ever seen, an “eternal black.”
“It is just breathtaking,” Kitchen said.
They floated in zero gravity for a few minutes and looked out the windows at the planet and into space before buckling themselves back in for the trip down under parachutes.
After a sonic boom, the reusable rocket powerfully, yet gracefully, landed in the center of a target. The engineering feat looked effortless.
Moments later, the capsule carrying the newly minted astronauts deployed its parachutes and touched down in the Texas desert. The trip took just over 10 minutes from liftoff to touchdown.
A big traveler (and a Tar Heel fan!)
Kitchen has traveled to all 193 countries, which are represented in the 10 passports he brought with him to space. This trip will symbolize the 194th, he said.
He stepped out of the capsule holding up his “194” flag and then hugged his wife, Susan, who was there to welcome him back to earth.
She and other crew members’ family and friends watched the liftoff from a Blue Origin facility about two miles away from the launch site.
The trip wouldn’t have been complete without a couple of shouts of “Go Tar Heels!” after the landing — a nod to the university and its men’s basketball team that’s playing in a historic NCAA Final Four game against arch-rival Duke on Saturday.
“To be able to go to space and see this borderless planet, I think is so meaningful especially given all that the world is going through right now,” Kitchen said in a video streamed before the launch.
Six-member crew, but no Pete Davidson
Kitchen was part of the 6 member crew who trained at Blue Origin’s launch facility in Texas before taking the trip to outer space.
Gary Lai, one of Blue Origin’s first 20 employees; Dr. George Nield, president of Commercial Space Technologies, LLC; entrepreneur and angel investor Marty Allen; and husband and wife Sharon and Marc Hagle joined Kitchen. Sharon is an educator and philanthropist, and Marc is president and CEO of real estate firm Tricor International LLC.
Originally, “Saturday Night Live” comedian Pete Davidson was set to be a passenger, but had to drop out and Lai took his spot.
This was the 20th mission for New Shepard and its fourth human spaceflight.
When Kitchen returns to campus, he’ll have some mementos for former and future students in UNC-CH’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.
Kitchen will hand out space-flown sunflower seeds to “plant the seed that anything is possible,” he said.
Kitchen also printed custom stickers that say “This sticker flew in space” and “My professor went to space and all I got was this lousy sticker.”
He teaches two classes of undergraduate entrepreneurship in the fall. Any student at UNC-CH can sign up, even if it’s just to get a sticker that went to space.
This story was originally published March 31, 2022 at 7:03 AM with the headline "‘An out of body experience’: UNC professor travels to space and back in 10 minutes."
