Jeff Bezos hugs fiancée Lauren Sánchez after she returns from the Blue Origin rocket flight on Monday, April 14. Photo:
Blue Origin/Youtube
After Lauren Sánchez and a star-studded group of women who flew outside the Earth’s atmosphere touched back down on solid ground, she was excited to see one person in particular — her fiancé, Jeff Bezos.
On Monday, April 14, the couple was seen embracing after Sánchez’s approximately 10-minute round-trip mission to the edge of space.
Bezos, founder of the Blue Origin rocket company that organized Monday’s flight, also spent some time with Sánchez before the launch in West Texas.
He took a quick tumble and fell down on the uneven terrain while walking to greet Sánchez, 55, at her capsule after she returned to Earth.
Sánchez said on the Blue Origin livestream after landing that seeing her fiancé earlier that morning had been emotional.
Then she joked about fitting in the flight ahead of her summer wedding to Bezos, 61, in Italy.
“I had to come back, I mean — we’re getting married,” she said. “If I didn’t come back, that would be a bummer for me.”
Lauren Sánchez and Jeff Bezos. Jamie McCarthy/WireImage
Sánchez was joined on the flight by Katy Perry, Gayle King, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, astronaut and bioastronautics research scientist Amanda Nguyen and filmmaker Kerianne Flynn.
They flew in a New Shepard rocket that briefly crossed the boundary from Earth’s atmosphere into space. Perry sang.
“Earth looked so — it was so quiet, it was just quiet,” Sánchez said on the livestream afteward, adding, “You look at it and you’re like, ‘We’re all in this together.’ That’s all I could think about. We’re so connected, more connected than you realize.”
“It makes me want to come back and just hug everyone,” she said. (Still, the Blue Origin flights are not without criticism from those who say they are exorbitant.)
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Bezos and Sánchez shared an embrace after Bezos landed safely back on Earth following his first foray into space, in 2021.
According to Blue Origin, the women’s mission this week was the 11th human flight for the New Shepard program and the 31st in its history.
So far, the company said its program has flown 52 people, including Star Trek‘s William Shatner.
This was also the first all-woman flight crew since Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova’s solo spaceflight in 1963.
Lauren Sanchez on a zoom call with Gayle King, Katy Perry, Amanda Nguyen, Aisha Bowe and Kerianne Flynn. Lauren Sanchez/Instagram
Bezos and Sánchez, who went public with their relationship in 2019 and got engaged in May 2023, have been candid about their support for one another, particularly when it comes to their ambitions for space travel.
In January, the billionaire Amazon founder and the former news anchor and philanthropist celebrated the successful launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket.
“Thinking about these moments at the launch. From intense focus, to pure joy, to that incredible moment New Glenn lit up the sky,” Sánchez captioned an Instagram post. “CONGRATULATIONS to the entire Blue team .. what a first launch 🚀💙.”
