Key Points
- Katy Perry joins first all-female spaceflight since 1963 aboard Blue Origin.
- The six women experienced weightlessness on an 11-minute suborbital flight.
- Blue Origin’s New Shepard aims to make space tourism more affordable long-term.
CONTENT WARNING: This story contains references to sexual assault.
Pop star Katy Perry and five other women launched into space on a Blue Origin rocket and successfully returned to Earth overnight, marking the first all-female spaceflight in more than 60 years.
The crew lifted off from West Texas at 9.31am Monday local time and travelled to the edge of space, where they experienced a brief period of weightlessness before returning to Earth in a flight lasting around 11 minutes, according to a live broadcast by Blue Origin, the space company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos.
The spaceflight was a high-profile success for Bezos' New Shepard launch vehicle, which has been developed for space tourism.
The six-person crew also included Bezos' fiancée Lauren Sanchez, CBS host Gayle King, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, scientist Amanda Nguyen and film producer Kerianne Flynn.
King said that when the crew returned to their seats after weightlessness, Perry sang the Louis Armstrong song What a Wonderful World.
"I feel super connected to love," Perry said after landing back on Earth.
"It's a 10 out of 10. That's my review. Definitely go for it."
Perry was holding a daisy, a flower she took into space, to remind her of her daughter, Daisy.
Nguyen — a survivor of rape who has campaigned for the expansion of victim-survivors' rights laws in the US — made history by becoming the first Vietnamese and Southeast Asian woman in space.
"I just want every survivor and every person who's ever had a dream deferred to know that your dreams are valid," she said after touching down in Texas.
"And even if your dreams are as wild as going to space, they matter. And you can get there too. If I can get there, you can get there too."
Among celebrities in attendance at the launch pad were a tearful Oprah Winfrey, a close friend of King, and show business personalities Kris Jenner and Khloe Kardashian.
It was the first all-female spaceflight since Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova — the first woman in space — orbited Earth during a nearly three-day solo flight in 1963.
Blue Origin does not disclose the average cost of a seat on one of its rockets. On its website, the company says potential passengers have to pay US$150,000 ($237,000) in the form of a refundable deposit to start the "order process."
In 2021, the company revealed the highest bid for a seat on its New Shepard spacecraft was US$28 million ($44.2 million). That same year, Star Trek actor William Shatner flew free of charge as a guest of Blue Origin.
Blue Origin says on its website it aims to radically reduce the cost of access to space, with its rockets designed for reusability.
Loizos Heracleous, a professor of strategy and organisation at Warwick Business School in Britain, estimates each launch of the New Shepard costs between US$1 million ($1.58 million) and US$3 million ($4.74 million).
"It will take a long long time before space tourism can be a financially sustainable business available to the public at large," Heracleous said.
