By Matthew Young
For HDMedia
In March 2022, Sharon Hagle boarded Blue Origin’s flight NS-20, on the launch pad in Van Horn, Texas. Joined by five other crew members, including her husband Marc Hagle, Sharon was blasted into space at 2,400 miles per hour, reaching a height of more than 66 miles straight up into the heavens.
Hagle made history that day. Not only was she the first woman from West Virginia to go to space, but along with her husband, they also became the first married couple ever to throw off their terrestrial shackles aboard a commercial vehicle.
Less than three years later, in November 2024, the Hagles made history again by joining fellow West Virginian Emily Calandrelli aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepherd reusable rocket for their second journey into low-Earth orbit, experiencing a few minutes of weightlessness before returning to Earth about 10 minutes after launch.
On Wednesday, Hagle brought all that history with her when she touched back down in the Mountain State in the form of a hometown school visit.
“I was a little girl in West Virginia, and I heard over the PA system that Alan Shephard became the first American to go into space in 1961,” Hagle said Wednesday while speaking to students at St. Albans High School, the same school Hagle graduated from in 1967. She was known as Sharon Burnette back then.
“Little did I realize that all these years later, that I would have the opportunity to go to space on a rocket named after him.”
In 2015 Hagle founded Spacekids Global, which puts a focus on education in an effort to make future space travel more attainable for children. Since founding the company, Hagle has traveled the country, taking speaking engagements at schools and youth groups and promoting the excitement and possibilities of going into space. Currently, Spacekids Global is in the midst of a five-year partnership with Purdue University, promoting the film “Boilers to Mars,” which showcases Purdue graduates preparing to become the first humans on the distant planet.
“West Virginia — St. Albans — is a long way away from the Kennedy Space Center,” Hagle said. “If you look at the history, West Virginia has sent four people to space. The first was back in 1984, and that was Capt. Jon McBride. And then in 2019, Andrew Morgan, he went to space — he was on the [International Space Station]. Then in 2022 was my first flight.”
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