UNC professor Jim Kitchen heading to outer space

Jim Kitchen and five others will be part of the scheduled March 23 mission.

Posted 2:13 p.m. Mar 14, 2022 — Updated 12:47 p.m. Mar 31, 2022

Mark Bergin

, WRAL senior multiplatform producer

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — University of North Carolina-Chapel hill professor Jim Kitchen is heading to outer space.

On Monday morning, Kitchen tweeted about the news.

Kitchen is a professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Kenan-Flagler Business School and a five-time entrepreneur. He has visited all 193 United Nations-recognized countries.

Last year, Kitchen spoke with WRAL News about competing for a seat on Shift4Shops' "Inspiration4" campaign. The e-commerce business' CEO Jared Isaacman bought a flight from SpaceX's Elon Musk and is putting together the first all-civilian mission to space.

"If I were to be on this flight, this would be akin to me being in the cargo hold of the Wright brothers' first plane," Kitchen told WRAL News in March 2021. "The first launch at Kitty Hawk."

The targeted 9:30 a.m. ET Wednesday, March 23 mission will include angel investor Marty Allen, SpaceKids Global founder Sharon Hagle, Tricor International CEO Marc Hagle and Commercial Space Technologies President Dr. George Nield.

The mission is the fourth human flight for Blue Origin’s New Shepard program and the 20th in its history. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin.

WRAL News is planning to interview Kitchen on Monday afternoon.

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