Sans celebrities, Blue Origin's 12th human spaceflight included world explorers and space enthusiasts.

Three world travelers, two Space Camp alums and an aerospace executive whose last name aptly matched their shared adventure traveled into space and back today (May 31), becoming the latest six people to fly with Blue Origin, the spaceflight company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos.

Mark Rocket joined Jaime Alemán, Jesse Williams, Paul Jeris, Gretchen Green and Amy Medina Jorge on board the RSS First Step — Blue Origin's first of two human-rated New Shepard capsules — for a trip above the Kármán Line, the 62-mile-high (100-kilometer) internationally recognized boundary between Earth and space.

For about three minutes, the six NS-32 crewmates experienced weightlessness and had an astronaut's-eye view of the planet.

"It was perfection," said Green soon after returning to Earth. "There are not a lot of times in your life when most of the time you're just doing your best, struggling through the hard times, enjoying the good ones, but there are very few things in life that were true perfection. And when I looked out at space and back down to the Earth, [it] was perfect."

The New Shepard launch vehicle — which included the capsule and a propulsion module, both of which are reusable — lifted off today at 8:39 a.m. CDT (9:39 a.m. EDT or 1339 GMT) from Blue Origin's Launch Site One near Van Horn in West Texas. About two and a half minutes into the flight, the booster cut off its engine and then separated, allowing the capsule to continue its coast upward into space and for it to return to Earth to make a propulsive, vertical landing on a concrete pad not far from where it launched.

The six NS-32 passengers, self-dubbed "The Pathfinders," meanwhile, reached an apogee, or maximum altitude, of 340,290 feet (104 km) above the ground, qualifying Rocket, Alemán, Williams, Jeris, Green and Jorge for Blue Origin-issued astronaut wings and their entry in the Association of Space Explorers' Registry of Worldwide Space Travelers.

The RSS First Step then descended back to Earth, using parachutes and a last-second jet of compressed air to make a soft touchdown about 10 minutes after it left Earth. Blue Origin personnel were soon on hand to inspect the vehicle, open the hatch and welcome the NS-32 crewmates home.