Blue Origin Reveals Who Replaces Pete Davidson on Next Crewed Launch – CNET [CNET]

Chad isn’t going to space. Gary is taking his place. 

SNL star and Kim Kardashian boyfriend Pete Davidson isn’t heading to the edge of space due to a flight delay. On Tuesday, Blue Origin announced that New Shepard chief architect Gary Lai will take the seat instead.

Jeff Bezos’ company announced on March 14 that Davidson was set to join five others on the company’s fourth crewed flight, originally set for March 23. Late Thursday, Blue Origin said the flight has been rescheduled to March 29, knocking Davidson off the crew sheet. 

Davidson was set to join the ranks of media host Michael Strahan, actor William Shatner and aviation pioneer Wally Funk as the latest celebrity civilian astronauts given a seat on a New Shepard rocket to help build the hype around Bezos’ space tourism project. 

Instead, Lai will fly on the spacecraft he had a significant role in building. He first joined Blue Origin in 2004 and was one of the company’s first 20 employees. 

The NS-20 crew will include investor and former Party America CEO Marty Allen, real estate executive Marc Hagle and wife, Sharon Hagle, who founded SpaceKids Global. Also on board will be George Nield, former associate administrator for the Federal Aviation Administration Office of Commercial Space Transportation, and entrepreneur Jim Kitchen. 

The New Shepard will blast off and send the crew capsule past the edge of space for a few minutes of weightlessness before it returns to the west Texas desert for a soft, parachute-assisted landing. The whole experience lasts about 15 minutes.

For now, Davidson’s space ventures will remain confined to the small screen. His doltish SNL character Chad took a turn as a SpaceX astronaut on Mars when Elon Musk hosted the show last year. 

One person who might have been happy to see Davidson blasted into space is Kanye West, Kardashian’s ex who has been harassing Davidson since he began dating Kardashian. 

Blue Origin plans to stream the adventure beginning an hour before launch that is currently targeted for 6:30 a.m. PT/8:30 a.m. CT on March 29. We’ll embed the feed here when it becomes available.