'That was freaking awesome': Toronto Blue Origin crew member describes out-of-this world experience

A Toronto man who flew into space last week as part of Blue Origin’s latest rocket launch says the experience “defies description.”

“I’m still processing,” Henry Wolfond told CTV News Toronto in an interview Monday morning. “Tears were sort of continuously behind my eyes (this weekend). And I don't know if it was from experiencing that breathtaking view and the feeling of weightlessness or that it was over.”

Wolfond, who serves as chairman and CEO of Bayshore Capital in Toronto, was part of a six-person crew onboard the New Shepard rocket, which marked the ninth human flight for the spacecraft and the 28th in is history.

The Toronto finance executive said Friday’s launch was years in the making after he decided to sign up for the space tourism flight after seeing fellow Canadian William Shatner do so in Oct. 2021. As a professional pilot, Wolfond said he had always dreamed of going to space, but didn’t “consider it seriously” until watching the then 90-year-old make the trip.

In the lead up to launch, Wolfond said he took part in two days of relatively intensive training, learning how to get back into his seat in zero gravity and going over emergency protocols.

The crew entered the capsule about 35 minutes before the 9:30 a.m. CT launch. After the door was closed, Wolfond said he and his crewmates sat in silence for half an hour awaiting lift off.

“And in that 30 minutes, I mean, there's some noise from fans and things, but, it's pretty quiet… for myself, I felt really calm,” he said, noting that they were sitting on 50 tons of “volatile propellant.”

The 100-ton rocket then climbed over 350,000 feet at speeds of up to 2,500 miles per hour (4023.36 km/h) before crossing the Kármán line, recognized as the boundary of space.

“I go to look out the window, and I look down, and it's just black. And I realize, ‘Oh, Earth is up there!’ Like you don't have any sense of up and down and it's incredible. And the colour of black…is not comparable to looking at a night sky. It's almost—it’s translucent. It's like liquid blue, black darkness,” Wolfond recalled.

Wolfond was allowed to bring a few personal items with him for the mission, including a picture of his grandparents, who fled Russia and Ukraine during the pogroms of the early 1900s, and one of his father-in-law, Saul, an Auschwitz survivor. He said he hopes his part in the mission helps to highlight his ongoing fight against the antisemitism that has increased since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

“This is a tiny planet in the vastness of the universe, and what I've been working on, virtually my entire adult life, is fighting antisemitism... So in this time, I just thought the message to bring to this view and this perspective that I'm seeing, especially in the wake of the spike in antisemitism since October 7 last year, is one of hope and trying to bring peace,” he said.

The flight only lasted a little over 10 minutes from take off to touch down. When he exited the crew capsule, an emotional Wolfond was greeted by his wife, Rochelle Reichert, and heard saying that he couldn’t wait “to go again” with her.

“I would love for Rochelle to have the experience. I'd love to go back again, but no immediate plans. It was just a spontaneous reaction like, ‘That was freaking awesome. I want to get I want to get on right away and go back up,’” he said.

It’s unclear how much exactly Wolfond paid to be on the flight, which can reportedly cost around US$200,000 (roughly C$279,600) a ticket. During the first crewed New Shepard flight three years ago, Blue Origin auctioned off a seat on the craft to a winning bid of US$28 million.