Blue Origin’s women-only mission launches celebrities and scientists on a quick space trip

Six women rode Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket ship today on a short suborbital space trip that was notable because of a crew that included pop superstar Katy Perry, morning TV host Gayle King — and Lauren Sanchez, the fiancée of the space venture’s billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos.

Liftoff from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in West Texas occurred on time at 8:30 a.m. CT (6:30 a.m. PT). Blue Origin streamed coverage of the nearly 11-minute mission via its website and YouTube.

The spacefliers marveled at the views, including a just-past-full moon that was hanging in a darkened sky. “Look at the moon,” one could be heard saying over an audio link. “Oh my God,” another replied.

“One of the smoothest flights we’ve had so far,” Blue Origin launch commentator Ariane Cornell said after touchdown.

This mission, known as NS-31, marked the 31st flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard spaceship and the 11th crewed flight. Fifty-eight people have now flown on New Shepard since 2021, including four people who have each taken two trips.

Blue Origin noted that NS-31 was the first women-only space mission since Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova’s solo spaceflight in 1963.

Sanchez, who is said to be due to marry Bezos this summer, chose the crew. In a 2023 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Sanchez said she wanted to go into space with “women who are making a difference in the world and who are impactful and have a message to send.”

Perry and King were arguably the headliners. Perry is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, and she’s also an advocate of philanthropic causes ranging from UNICEF to her own Firework Foundation. King is one of the co-hosts of “CBS Mornings” and editor-at-large at Oprah Daily.

“This is so much bigger than just a fun trip — what it represents to young women, to girls, what they’re trying to do on space in terms of looking at the planet in another way.” King said before the launch on CBS.

The other three crew members on NS-31 made their mark by promoting education and outreach in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (also known as STEM):

• Aisha Bowe is a former NASA rocket scientist, entrepreneur and global STEM advocate. She is the CEO of STEMBoard, an engineering firm that provides advisory services to federal and commercial organizations; and the founder of LINGO, which aims to help students with their STEM education.
• Amanda Nguyen is a bioastronautics research scientist. She graduated from Harvard, and conducted research at Harvard Center for Astrophysics, MIT, NASA and the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences. She was recognized as a TIME Woman of the Year in 2022 for her advocacy for sexual violence survivors. Today she became the first Vietnamese-born woman to travel to space.
• Kerianne Flynn is a producer for films including “This Changes Everything,” which explores the history of women in Hollywood; and “Lilly,” a tribute to fair-pay advocate Lilly Ledbetter. She’s also involved in community-building in New York City through board service and nonprofit work with The Allen-Stevenson School, The High Line and Hudson River Park.

All six women have talked about the flight on Instagram, and over the weekend they showed off the body-hugging neoprene flight suits they’ll wear on New Shepard. “Here’s something I never thought I’d see — me in an astronaut suit,” King said in a video post. “But I like it!”

Social media also gave critics an opening to complain about the celebrity hype. “The money spent on this ‘stunt’ could help so many disadvantaged people, just sad,” one commenter wrote in response to King’s post.

“The promotion of Lauren Sanchez’s vanity space flight while NASA fires its chief scientist, Katherine Calvin, and programs to encourage girls in STEM are decimated, is the nail in the coffin for celebrity feminism. Everyone involved in this stunt should be embarrassed,” Jessica Grose, an opinion columnist for The New York Times, wrote on Threads.

The NS-31 flight plan followed the formula used for Blue Origin’s 10 previous crewed missions, starting with the trip that Jeff Bezos and three other fliers took in 2021. Today, Bezos wore his own blue-and-black flight suit as he accompanied the six women to the launch pad (and gave Sanchez a pre-launch kiss).

New Shepard’s hydrogen-powered booster sent the crew capsule to a height of more than 62 miles (100 kilometers) — which marks the internationally accepted boundary of outer space, known as the Karman Line. The unofficial peak altitude was 65.6 miles (105.6 kilometers).

Inside the crew capsule, the spacefliers experienced a few minutes of weightlessness and got a wide-angle view of the Earth below and the black sky above. Then they returned to their seats for a parachute-assisted touchdown amid the Texas scrublands. Meanwhile, the booster made its own autonomous landing on a pad not far from the launch site.

Bowe conducted three research experiments, including studies focusing on plant biology and human physiology. Sanchez brought up a student-built science payload that’s about the size of a milk carton to record acceleration, temperature, pressure and other parameters for the Teachers in Space program. Perry carried hundreds of bracelets for her Firework Foundation.

The flight also carried postcards from students around the world as part of an educational campaign organized by the Club for the Future, Blue Origin’s nonprofit foundation.

Among the celebrities watching from the ground was Oprah Winfrey, who said she urged Gayle King to overcome her qualms about flying and go on the flight. “I’ve never been more proud of my friend than I am today,” she said during Blue Origin’s webcast.

The company doesn’t typically discuss the ticket prices for its suborbital spaceflights, but it seems safe to assume that Sanchez and her crewmates didn’t pay full fare. In February, Space News quoted Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp as saying that the “tickets aren’t inexpensive … and there’s no buyer’s remorse.”

“I do believe New Shepard will be a very good business for us,” Limp said.