"I have bad news for flat-earthers": Jesús Calleja successfully completes his flight into space

BarcelonaThe official Mediaset adventurer has crossed its furthest frontier. This Tuesday, at half past four in the afternoon, Jesús Calleja took part in the New Sephard flight and crossed the so-called Kármán line, which officially marks the beginning of outer space. The journey lasted eleven minutes and first rose to 76 kilometres of altitude, at which point the capsule separated from the propellant. Then it continued to rise, until reaching 106 kilometres from the surface of the planet. The atmosphere does not have a defined end, but rather it becomes thinner, but it is considered that from that level onwards the terrestrial cover no longer affects aeronautics. After (metaphorically) putting its toes in the cosmos, the ship returned autonomously until making a precision landing on a platform, following a stable free fall process. "It was a dream. It's impressive," were his first words upon leaving, amid tears of emotion. "The Earth is such a beautiful place and the atmosphere is such a fine line..." he added.

The New Shepard is one of the space vehicles of the company Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon and the Prime Video service. The small feat has been seen through this platform, and also on Telecinco, from three thirty in the afternoon. Calleja thus became the first non-astronaut Spaniard to travel to space and the first presenter to do television so far from Earth, although the images of the interior of the capsule, and the views he has enjoyed, will not be made public for a few days.

The Telecinco special has had the participation of the former astronaut and former Minister of Science Pedro Duque, the journalist Mercedes Milà, the aeronautical engineer and director of the Spanish Space Agency Juan Carlos Cortés and the general director of PLD Space, Raúl Torres. In addition, the journalist from the network's news channel, David Jiménez, has also participated from Texas – the place where the launch is taking place – to review the aspects related to the training that Calleja has received in the United States to be able to make this flight. On the other hand, the journalist Ruth Méndez has connected from Jesús's house and family went under the hairdryer at the hairdresser's to imagine an adventure like the one he finally experienced, at 59 years of age. During the preparation of the trip, Calleja joked: "I have bad news for flat-earthers."

The narration was provided by Carlos Franganillo and María Casado and, as expected, was accompanied by epic rhetoric on the subject. The presenters have spoken of "a shared dream" and "the adventure of discovering new worlds," although the flight does not last a quarter of an hour and the distance traveled is only, to put it in scale, 0.026 percent of the average distance from the planet to the Moon. In fact, the company Blue Origin is focused on the development of so-called space tourism. Calleja, in this sense, traveled in a rocket that is totally controlled from the base and did not have to assume any crew duties.

The price of this adventure, called Mission NS 30, has not been disclosed. However, the media Quartz estimated at $1,250,000 the price paid three years ago for a similar trip: the one promoted by the youtuber Coby Cotton, funded by the MoonDAO cryptocurrency community. On that occasion, the journey lasted 10 minutes and 20 seconds, which means a cost of 2,000 dollars per second. With Calleja, this afternoon there were five millionaire businessmen who also wanted to try the privilege of visiting an obviously exclusive destination and the vertigo of being able to look at the Earth from outside. So far, 56 people have flown with Blue Origin in space.

In any case, despite not having to do anything, the journey has been intense: the effect of the acceleration (up to 5.5G) has made his body mass – about 60 kilos, on Earth – increase to 350 kilos. For approximately three minutes, he has experienced the lack of appreciable gravity. Another intense moment was the landing, as in a short time the speed went from more than 3,500 kilometers per hour to just 40 per hour, in order to deposit the ship as smoothly as possible on the reception platform thanks to its retropropulsors.