Pop star Katy Perry and journalists Gayle King and Lauren Sanchez, who is also billionaire Jeff Bezos’ fiancée, are set to blast off into space on a Blue Origin rocket, marking the first all-female flight crew in more than six decades.
The New Shepard rocket, a 59-foot tall (18-meter) suborbital spacecraft, will carry the crew to the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary of space, Bezos-owned Blue Origin said in a statement.
Passengers will experience a few minutes of microgravity before returning to Earth via parachute-assisted landing in the West Texas desert.
NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, bioastronautics researcher Amanda Nguyen and movie producer Kerianne Flynn will make up the rest of the crew. The company has not disclosed a date for the mission.
“Missions like this can be an effective PR tactic to bring in the private money needed to reduce costs in the long run,” said Professor Ehud Behar, astrophysicist.
“Ultimately, these investments also support the launch of scientific and commercial instruments into space as well - not just people.”
This is the 11th human flight for the rocket and its 31st overall. The last recorded all-female spaceflight was the 1963 solo mission of Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space.
New Shepard’s first crewed flight in July 2021 carried Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark.
The rocket has since taken former NFL player Michael Strahan and Star Trek actor William Shatner, who became the oldest person in space at the age to 90.
The company’s giant New Glenn rocket blasted off from Florida last month on its first mission to space, an inaugural step into Earth’s orbit for Jeff Bezos’ space company as it aims to rival SpaceX in the satellite launch business.
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