HOT AIR BALLOON FLIGHT

News Alert: Michael Strahan goes to space on Blue Origin mission

Jeff Bezos' rocket company, Blue Origin, has sent "Good Morning America" host Michael Strahan, the daughter of famed astronaut Alan Shepard, and four paying customers on a supersonic joy ride to the edge of space. 

The crew took off aboard one of Blue Origin's suborbital space tourism rockets, called New Shepard, at 10:01 a.m. ET from the company's launch facilities near the rural town of Van Horn, Texas, where Bezos owns a sprawling ranch.

Strahan and Laura Shepard Churchley, whose father Alan Shepard went on a suborbital flight in 1961 and later walked on the moon, rode alongside investors Dylan Taylor, Evan Dick, and Lane Bess, as well as Bess' adult child, Cameron Bess — all of whom paid for their seats.