Amanda Nguyễn (first from right). Photo courtesy of New Shepard

HÀ NỘI — Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, organised a flight of New Shepard, a fully reusable, suborbital rocket system, with a crew of six women in West Texas, the US, on April 14 (local time).

The flight, called mission NS-31, is the 11th human spaceflight project of Blue Origin. The selected group of astronauts are outstanding women in many fields, including Amanda Nguyễn - founder and general director of the non-governmental organisation RISE. The New Shepard's journey was a great success, reaching an altitude of 100 km in space and returning safely. After the flight, Amanda Nguyễn marked herself as the first woman of Vietnamese origin to fly into space.

Vietnamese Ambassador to the US Nguyễn Quốc Dũng attended the New Shepard mission and presented a letter from State President Lương Cường to Amanda Nguyễn.

In the letter, the President expressed his joy and pride that for the first time a woman of Vietnamese origin had flown into space, affirming the talent and intelligence of Vietnamese people in the US and around the world.

The President's letter emphasised that in 2025, Vietnam and the US will celebrate the 30th founding anniversary of diplomatic relations and in the overall relationship between the two countries, Việt Nam highly appreciates the positive contributions of the Vietnamese community in the US to the development and progress of the US, as well as promoting the Việt Nam-US cooperative relationship.

The President also highly appreciated the cooperation between Amanda Nguyễn and the Việt Nam National Space Centre (VNSC), helping to promote the cooperative relationship between the US and Việt Nam.

Born on October 10, 1991, Amanda Nguyễn graduated from the Harvard University and interned at NASA in 2013. She then worked at the Harvard & Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, and then served as deputy White House liaison at the US State Department.

In November 2014, she founded Rise, a non-governmental organisation dedicated to protecting the civil rights of survivors of sexual assault. In 2019, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to fight for the rights of victims of sexual assault. — VNS