Pete Davidson is coolin' on space, won't be boarding Blue Origin flight anymore

Nick Romano
·2 min read

UPDATE: A spokesperson for Blue Origin said Friday afternoon that Pete Davidson dropped out of the New Shepard crew flight due to scheduling issues.

The launch was originally slated for March 23 but was delayed so that Blue Origin could run additional preflight tests on one of the subsystems, the rep told EW. Because of the delay, Davidson could no longer be involved with the mission.

EARLIER: Mission Control, Pete Davidson is grounded. We repeat: grounded.

After announcing the Saturday Night Live star would be joining the crew of the upcoming Blue Origin rocket, set to launch toward the end of this month, Jeff Bezos' private spaceflight company made it known Friday that Davidson "is no longer able to join" the New Shepard crew on their mission."

Reps for Davidson did not immediately respond to EW's request for comment.

Davidson was originally announced for Blue Origin's 20th mission and fourth human flight with turnaround Party America CEO and angel investor Marty Allen, SpaceKids Global founder Sharon Hagle, Tricor International president and CEO Marc Hagle, University of North Carolina teacher Jim Kitchen, and Commercial Space Technologies, LLC president, Dr. George Nield.

Is Davidson's departure SNL-related? A spokesperson for the show told The New York Times there are no new episodes this weekend or next weekend. The flight was originally scheduled for March 23. So, that seems like a no.

In any case, Blue Origin announced the launch will now be delayed until March 29, and a sixth crew member will be announced "in the coming days." All we're saying is Mark Hamill is right there. If we're sending William Shatner to space, it seems only fair someone from Star Wars can represent the stratosphere.

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