NFL defensive great Michael Strahan to be next space tourist

By MICHELLE CHAPMAN
AP Business Writer

“Good Morning America” co-host Michael Strahan is going to space next month. Strahan, who turned 50 on Sunday, will join Laura Shepard Churchley, the eldest daughter of astronaut Alan Shepard, on the Dec. 9 mission aboard the New Shepard, a spacecraft named after her father, the first American in space. The Blue Origin flight, the company headed by Jeff Bezos, will also carry four paying customers and will be the third by the New Shepard craft this year to shuttle humans to space. The 10-minute flight, five minutes less than Alan Shepard’s 1961 Mercury flight, will launch from West Texas carrying six people, two more than previous two flights this year with humans aboard.