See Inside Blue Origins Village Where Astronauts Sleep in Trailers – Business Insider

• Blue Origin passengers sleep in Airstream trailers in the company’s Astronaut Village before launch.
• Passenger Chris Boshuizen told Insider that the trailers reminded him of the Apollo era.
• There’s a restaurant, a bar, and a firepit where passengers and staff congregate in the afternoons.

Space tourists about to blast 62 miles above Earth on board a rocket made by Jeff Bezos’ company have to sleep in Airstream trailers on a campsite in the Texas desert.

Chris Boshuizen, who was on a Blue Origin flight with the “Star Trek” actor William Shatner and two other passengers in October, said he was based in a campsite called Astronaut Village in the days before the launch.

Astronaut Village is about 15 miles away from the launch site in Van Horn, Texas, Don DiCostanzo, a business owner who was Shatner’s wingman before and after the spaceflight, told Insider in a previous interview.

The campsite is down a long dirt path with “tight security,” said DiCostanzo, who slept in a hotel room nearby, which he said was paid for by the company.

Boshuizen, an Australian former NASA engineer, described the rural Astronaut Village as a “perfect little campsite.”

Each astronaut is given a silver Airstream trailer to sleep in before the flight. Boshuizen said the trailers’ interiors were redone to be “more like a hotel than camper van.” 

“It’s not like a five-star hotel or anything,” Boshuizen said. He added that the trailers reminded him of the Apollo era.

“They have historic artifacts here and there in the different rooms, so you really feel like you’re in a place with some connection to past and future,” he continued.

Bezos and his fellow passengers stayed in Astronaut Village ahead of their flight on the company’s New Shepard rocket in July.

Michael Strahan, a “Good Morning America” anchor; Laura Shepard Churchley, the daughter of US astronaut Alan Shepard; and four other paying customers are set to be the next group to sleep in the trailers before blasting off in Blue Origin’s rocket.

The campsite also has its own restaurant and bar.

In the middle of Astronaut Village is a firepit surrounded by lots of chairs, which is considered the meeting area for staff and guests.

“We hung out there and chatted, and had a drink in the afternoon after training. It’s a good chance to bond,” Boshuizen said. “It’s designed around having the astronauts bond, and how the guests and staff connect.”