Pop star Katy Perry, television host Gayle King, former journalist Lauren Sánchez, ex-NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, bioastronautics research scientist Amanda Nguyen, and film producer Kerianne Flynn embarked on a Blue Origin rocket and successfully returned to Earth on Monday, marking the first all-female spaceflight in over six decades.The crew launched from West Texas at 9:31 a.m. ET (1331 GMT) and ascended to the edge of space, where they experienced a brief moment of weightlessness before completing an approximately 11-minute flight back to Earth, as reported in a live broadcast by Blue Origin, the aerospace company established by billionaire Jeff Bezos. This mission represented a significant achievement for Bezos’ New Shepard launch vehicle, which is designed for space tourism.
Upon the crew’s return, Bezos was seen embracing Lauren Sánchez as she exited the capsule. King noted that after experiencing weightlessness, Perry sang Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.” Perry held a daisy, a flower she brought into space as a reminder of her daughter, Daisy. This flight was the first all-female space mission since Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, orbited Earth during her nearly three-day solo mission in 1963.According to Blue Origin’s website, the company aims to significantly lower the cost of space access, with its rockets engineered for reusability. “Even disregarding development costs, with six seats available, each passenger would need to pay around half a million USD for this to be a financially viable ongoing business,” stated Heracleous. “It will take a considerable amount of time before space tourism becomes a financially sustainable option accessible to the general public.”
