I Won a Trip to Space on Jeff Bezos's Rocket
Two years after entering a giveaway, Austin Litteral took off from the Amazon founder’s launch pad.
When 38-year-old father of two Austin Litteral entered an online giveaway promising a trip to space aboard Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s New Shepard rocket, he never expected to actually win.
So when he got the email saying he’d been chosen to join five other crew members on a voyage 62 miles above Earth to the internationally recognized boundary of space, he was convinced it was a mistake.
“I assumed it was just a bug, a technical glitch, like they did it wrong,” he continued. “I was like, ‘That's really embarrassing; they're going to have to tell a lot of people that they didn't win the trip to space.’”
But it wasn’t. In November 2024—two years after he entered the “WhatNot To The Moon” Black Friday giveaway held by the online marketplace app WhatNot—Litteral, a Delaware financial services professional, lifted up from Blue Origin’s launch pad in Van Horn, Texas, to join an elite club of civilians who have traveled to space.
“Even when I was sitting in the rocket [before takeoff], I kept on thinking, ‘Is this really going to happen? Am I really going to space?’” Litteral said. “It just seemed so surreal still, that this was even a possibility.”
His fellow space tourists included MIT engineer and Xploration Outer Space host Emily Calandrelli; entrepreneur James (J.D.) Russell; Canadian financier and longtime pilot Henry (Hank) Wolfond; and Sharon and Marc Hagle, the first married couple in space, who were making their second trip aboard Blue Origin’s rocket.
All of Litteral’s crew mates paid for their seats. Blue Origin would not disclose the price, but Bezos said in 2021 that his company had already sold close to $100 million in seats on future flights. For reference, the rival space tourism company, Virgin Galactic, charges $600,000 for seats on future space flights.
This was the ninth human flight for Blue Origin’s New Shepard program and the 28th in its 12-year history. To date, the program has flown 47 humans above the Kármán Line, the internationally recognized boundary of space—including flying Bezos himself in 2021, who called it his “best day ever.”
The New Shepard flights (named after Alan Shepard, the first American in space) last about 11 minutes from liftoff to touchdown and offer passengers about four minutes of weightlessness, where they can see the curvature of the Earth and the vast darkness of space.
“I didn’t expect to see so much space, and I kept saying ‘That’s our planet! That’s our planet!’" fellow New Shepard crew member Calandrelli said on social media afterward. "It was the same feeling I got when my kids were born, and I was like, ‘That’s my baby!’”
It was a lucky break for Litteral, a once-aspiring astronaut who had pictures of NASA Space Shuttles plastered all over his walls as a child. He never pursued space, though; instead, he got his MBA from Temple University in Philadelphia before launching into a career in finance.
While NASA and the FAA may beg to differ, Litteral is now technically an official astronaut. At least according to Merriam-Webster, which defines the title as “any person who travels beyond the earth's atmosphere.”
“I think by that stipulation, we’re astronauts, and I’m OK with that,” Litteral said. “But I keep on telling people, ‘I went to space, and I will let you call me whatever you want.’”
New Shepard’s passengers aren’t required to do much in flight besides enjoy the ride. After all, the rocket is fully autonomous; the New Shepard capsule has no pilot.
Then again, putting essentially untrained civilians into space and seeing what happens does contribute to the overall study of how such a flight might affect the average Joe. For this, New Shepard crew members wore biometric health trackers throughout their training and the flight to see how the literal pressures of the journey would impact their bodies.
“It was a great opportunity to contribute a little bit to the science,” Litteral said.
Prepping for Space Travel
There are waivers, of course. And stipulations.
According to Blue Origin’s “Astronaut Experience” terms, all New Shepard passengers must be between 5 feet and 6’4 tall and weigh between 110 and 223 pounds. Blue Origin doesn’t require a specific medical exam to join the crew, leaving it up to each participant to “reach that determination individually and at his/her own expense.”
Other requirements include that passengers must be able to climb the New Shepard Launch Tower (equivalent to 7 flights of stairs) in under 90 seconds, fasten and unfasten their own seat harness in under 15 seconds, and sit strapped in the capsule’s reclined seat for up to 90 minutes without getting up and without access to a bathroom, among others.
That’s not to say there wasn’t any training for the big day. The space travelers arrived at Bezos’ sprawling Texas ranch, which serves as Blue Origin’s launch site, three days before the scheduled launch. It was enough time to learn the basics about the New Shepard capsule, the six-person pod that lurches toward the heavens on top of a six-story tall booster.
It was also long enough to do several simulations in a mock capsule, where the crew went over launch protocols and addressed possible malfunctions—including a launch failure scenario that would activate the rocket’s escape system (which would disconnect and propel the crew capsule to safety if a problem were detected with the booster).
The Day of Launch
The crew boarded the capsule about 40 minutes before the scheduled 10:30 am liftoff, each settling into their reclining seats beside large windows designed for viewing the Earth and space.
And then it was go time.
At 3…2…1, the rocket thrusts upward from the desert floor. Passengers experienced up to 3Gs of force, traveling three times the speed of sound.
“The first few seconds, the booster lights, but you don't have enough thrust to move yet, so you just are sitting there and waiting,” Litteral said. “It’s probably the longest 10 seconds of your life. Then all of a sudden, it's just up and up you start to feel the G-forces in your chest. It feels like somebody's standing right on your chest.”
About 2.5 minutes in, the booster detached and returned to Earth for an autonomous landing while the capsule coasted upward toward space.
Reaching 62 miles above the Earth, the crew experienced four minutes of zero gravity. They bumped around the small cabin, took a group picture, tossed objects into the air (including various collectibles Litteral was required to bring for a future WhatNot auction), and gazed out the windows at Earth and the endlessness of space beyond it.
“I don’t think we are wired to comprehend that view,” Litteral said. “It is awesome in the most literal definition of the word.”
No sooner does the free-floating existentialism begin than it’s time to strap back into the seats for the plunge back toward Earth, a ride that pushed up to 5.5 Gs, which Litteral felt as “an intense pressure” in his face. Parachutes slowed the capsule to about 15 mph before it thumped down in the Texas desert.
“You grow up watching the movies of NASA launches and they’re violent, right? They’re shaking and sweaty and intense,” he said. “This was less than that. I was surprised that it wasn’t more intense than it was.”
This, from a guy who admits he doesn’t even like roller coasters.
When asked if it was worth the risk—especially as a father to two young children— Litteral said he never felt like he was in danger. And saying no wasn’t an option.
“What kind of example would I be leading if I said no to it because I was afraid?” said Litteral, whose daughters are 6 months and 3 years old. “I want my daughters to be open to all the opportunities life has for them—and sometimes these opportunities go beyond what we think is possible, and sometimes they’re scary, and sometimes we just have to be a little bit brave.”