Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin insists its passengers eat breakfast but avoid coffee and orange juice before they blast into space

Kate Duffy
Updated ·2 min read
36
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

  • Blue Origin likes to ensure passengers tuck into breakfast before launching to the edge of space.

  • Astronauts Sharon and Marc Hagle said they were told it was better to have food in their stomachs.

  • However, the company advised passengers to avoid drinking coffee and orange juice, they said.

Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos's rocket company, makes sure its passengers eat breakfast before blasting 62 miles above the Earth's surface.

That's according to Sharon and Marc Hagle, the first married couple to fly into space on a commercial vehicle. They were onboard Blue Origin's 20th trip to the edge of space on March 31, along with four other passengers.

The Hagles told Insider about their experience of flying with Blue Origin.

In the days before a rocket launch, Blue Origin passengers stay in the Astronaut Village campsite in the Texas desert, around 15 miles away from the company's launch site near Van Horn.

After having to wake up around 4 a.m., Marc said the passengers left their rooms and went to have breakfast. Blue Origin laid a full spread out for them, the couple said.

"They insist that you eat breakfast," Sharon said. "You have to have something in your stomach."

Based on research from NASA and other experts in the space industry, the human body works better in zero gravity if there is food in the stomach, Marc said.

"They just asked us to stay away from orange juice and coffee because of the acid," Sharon said.

NASA said in a flight surgeon's report that pilots Alan Shepard and Virgil "Gus" Grissom, who flew on Mercury-Redstone 3 and Mercury-Redstone 4 missions respectively in 1961, were not allowed to drink coffee for breakfast on the morning of the launches because of its "diuretic properties."

Blue Origin and NASA didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

The Hagles plan to launch again soon with Bezos' rocket company but were unable to disclose the date.

During the interview, they also agreed with fellow Blue Origin astronaut William Shatner about space trips triggering feelings of grief and intense emotions. Shatner previously said his journey to space with Bezos's company "felt like a funeral" and all he saw was sadness.

Read the original article on Business Insider