Blue Origin completed its latest spaceflight Monday with a historic all-female crew. The mission, NS-31, was the 11th human flight for Jeff Bezos’s space tourism company, and 31st overall.
It included six women: aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe; activist Amanda Nguyen; CBS Mornings host Gayle King; pop singer Katy Perry; film producer Kerianne Flynn; and Lauren Sánchez, an author, TV host turned philanthropist, and Bezos’s fiancée.
The crew boarded their capsule atop the fully autonomous New Shepard rocket in Van Horn, Texas, early Monday for a suborbital flight that lasted just over 10 minutes.
The rocket took them past the Kármán line — 62 miles above Earth, which some international aviation and aerospace experts consider the threshold of space — allowing the crew to experience a few minutes of weightlessness before returning safely to Earth in a capsule that employed three parachutes as it touched down on the desert floor.
What the crew said after they landed
The capsule carrying the six women touches down in Van Horn, Texas, Monday in this screen grab taken from a video. (Blue Origin/Handout via Reuters)
Upon their return, Bezos opened the capsule door and hugged Sánchez, who was in tears as she described what she saw.
“Earth looked so— it was so quiet. It was just quiet,” Sánchez said.
“I will never be the same,” Bowe said of her experience. “There’s no boundaries, no border. There’s just Earth.”
Nguyen, a rape survivor, brought the hospital bracelet she wore after the assault as a “zero G” indicator — or an object intended to float in the cabin during weightlessness. She said brought it as a reminder to “never, never give up.”
Jeff Bezos embraces Lauren Sánchez as she comes out of the capsule. (Blue Origin/Handout via Reuters)
Perry and King each kissed the ground after exiting the capsule.
Perry held up a daisy that she took on the flight in honor of her 4-year-old daughter Daisy.
“This experience is second to being a mom,” Perry said.
The pop star sang “It’s A Wonderful World” on board before descending.
Kerianne Flynn, Katy Perry, Lauren Sánchez, Aisha Bowe, Gayle King and Amanda Nguyen pose for a photo following Monday’s flight. (Screengrab via Blue Origin)
“It’s not about me; it’s not about singing my songs,” Perry said. “It’s about a collective energy.”
King, who has a fear of flying, said she was proud of herself for taking part in the launch.
“This was not a ride,” she said. “This was a bonafide freakin’ flight.”
King said the experience also changed her.
“It’s such a reminder about how we need to do better, be better,” she said. “Do better, be better human beings.”
The lead-up to the launch
Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket blasts off from Van Horn, Texas, Monday in this screen grab taken from a video. (Blue Origin/Handout via Reuters)
Blue Origin touted it as the first all-female spaceflight since 1963, when the Soviet Union’s Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to travel to space on a three-day solo mission.
Since 2021, Blue Origin has carried a total of 52 people to the edge of space on 10 human flights. Bezos himself was part of the crew on Blue Origin’s first.
On Monday, Bezos accompanied the women as they loaded into the capsule.
“I’m so excited for you. I don’t want to get off,” he told the crew before takeoff. “I want to go with you. And when you get back, I can’t wait to hear how it’s changed you.”
Friends and family members of the crew — including Oprah Winfrey, Kris and Khloe Kardashian, and Perry’s daughter Daisy — watched the launch in person from the launch site in west Texas.
“None of us will forget this day,” Winfrey said on the live webcast.
Space ‘glam’ backlash
This image provided by Blue Origin shows the crew days before the flight in Van Horn, Texas. (Blue Origin via AP)
The latest Blue Origin mission wasn’t without some controversy.
The all-female crew drew criticism over a joint interview it did for a recent Elle magazine cover story in which they revealed they would be getting “glammed up” for the flight.
“Space is going to finally be glam,” Perry said. “We are going to put the ‘ass’ in astronaut.”
Bowe said she recently went skydiving in Dubai because “I wanted to test out my hair and make sure that it was okay.”
“We’re going to have lash extensions flying in the capsule!” Sánchez said.
While co-hosting NBC’s Today With Jenna & Friends, actress Olivia Munn blasted the crew while questioning the need for the mission.
“What’s the point? Is it historic that you guys are going on a ride? I think it’s a bit gluttonous,” she said. “Space exploration was to further our knowledge and to help mankind. What are they gonna do up there that has made it better for us down here?
“I know this is probably obnoxious,” Munn added. “But like, it’s so much money to go to space, and there’s a lot of people who can’t even afford eggs.”
“Some prominent women — the ones able to command attention in our information-saturated world — are going to space for 11 minutes, and they’re using the related publicity to raise awareness about eyelash extensions,” Jessica Grose wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times. “This morally vacuous space stunt should be another nail in the coffin of celebrity feminism.”
