Katy Perry successfully takes part in all-female spaceflight

by Mick the Ram

Katy Perry was part of a six female-only crew who were launched into space on board an autonomous rocket made by Blue Origin, the private space firm owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

The superstar singer was joined by the billionaire owner’s fiancée, Lauren Sánchez; TV host Gayle King; Aisha Bowe, a former NASA rocket scientist; Amanda Nguyen, a bio-astronautics research scientist; and movie producer Kerianne Flynn. 

The rocket called “New Shepard” lifted off at 8:30am local time and proceeded to fly through space for around four minutes, before floating back down to Earth, with the entire journey taking just 11 minutes.

Reusable rocket

Blue Origin prides itself on reusability to reduce the cost of accessing space and were the first company to successfully launch a commercial suborbital flight with paying passengers. 

That was achieved back in 2021, marking a huge milestone in space tourism, with Bazos himself  on board for the flight. 

Passed the Karman Line

This mission accelerated into space at more than three times the speed of sound in what was the rocket’s 11th human flight. 

During the flight, the New Shepard capsule reached an altitude of 62 miles (100km) as it flew past the Karman Line – the internationally recognised boundary of space that is 100km (62 miles) above Earth.

Weightless experience

The passenger section of the craft then separated from the body and floated for several minutes weightlessly, as the lower body of the rocket detached halfway through the flight, deploying its landing gear as it touched back down to earth.

The capsule stayed afloat for a short time longer, using parachutes for its own descent.

Max-Q reached

The forces on both the capsule and the crew would have been intense as the rocket hit its point of maximum stress, known as Max-Q in aerospace engineering.

According to Blue Origin, the female “astronauts” will have experienced three times the force of gravity, as the booster accelerated. 

There were no pilots, with the passengers sitting in a small, round capsule at the top of the rocket and each getting their own window to take in the wonders that being in space afforded them.

“Surrendering to the unknown”

Following the flight, both King and Perry kneeled down to kiss the West Texas Earth.

As promised beforehand, whilst in space the singer sang “What a Wonderful World” and said it was “a feeling of joy and gratefulness” and felt “connected to love”, before remarking: “It is the highest high and it is surrender to the unknown; I couldn’t recommend this experience more.”

Ms Sanchez added: “I don’t really have words for it, earth looked just so quiet.”