The force was with students from the Ardmore Boys & Girls Club as they got the first view of Blue Origin’s unveiling of the Mannequin Skywalker exhibit at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center.

In partnership with Blue Origin’s nonprofit, Club for the Future, who recently made a $1 million donation to support Space Camp programs at the USSRC, Mannequin and his flown seat are part of a new and growing exhibit dedicated to accomplishments in Blue Origin’s New Shepard space exploration missions.

Kevin Sproge, CrewMember 7 and Chief Trainer for Blue Origin, explains the Mannequin Skywalker test dummy to children from the Ardmore Boys & Girls Club, Space Camp students and Blue Origin employees at the unveiling of the exhibit at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center

“I’m a pilot, you know, and someday I’m going to fly away from this place,” said Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars’ The Phantom Menace.

In December 2017 and again in January 2021, Anakin’s eponymous space dummy, Mannequin Skywalker, indeed flew away aboard Blue Origin’s test flight NS7 rocket as a stand-in for what is today’s human space tourists.

Long before William Shatner of Star Trek fame joined Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos on a space tourist mission last month, Mannequin Skywalker, wearing Space Camp wings on his flight suit and human data sensors on his Anthropomorphic Test Device (ATD), took the test flight first to ensure safety and comfort.

The Space & Rocket Center’s newest exhibit features Mannequin and his “space-flown” seat. Visitors can learn how human data like weight, form, center of gravity, and range of joint motion, were collected and monitored to replicate a human as they leave earth’s gravitational pull and experiences the weightlessness of space.

“We used these kinds of devices in our test campaign to measure the stresses on the human body,” said Kevin Sprogue, Crewmember 7 and chief astronaut trainer at Blue Origin. “We test our seat design, look at all of the forces that they are going to be subjected to, and it helps us validate our modeling and simulation.”

Visit the USSRC rocketcenter.com to learn more about the new Mannequin Skywalker exhibit and other ongoing programs and activities.