Pop star Katy Perry will blast off into
space as part of an upcoming all-women flight on Blue Origin's New Shepherd
rocket.
The Firework singer will go into space with
Blue Origin owner Jeff Bezos's fiancee Lauren Sanchez, CBS presenter Gayle
King, former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda
Nguyen, and film producer Kerianne Flynn.
This is the first all-women space flight to
take place since the Soviet Union's Valentina Tereshkova's solo mission in
1963.
There is no specific date for the launch,
but Blue Origin said it will take place soon.
Katy Perry will be on her Lifetimes Tour
from 23 April until 11 November, so this trip will take place before that.
The NS-31 mission will be the 11th human
spaceflight for the New Shepherd rocket and the 31st in its history. So far,
the programme has launched 52 people into space.
A trip on the New Shepard typically lasts
about 11 minutes, according to Blue Origin. It is fully autonomous - which
means there are no pilots - and takes the passengers past the Karman line,
internationally recognised as the edge of space.
Blue Origin credited Lauren Sanchez for
bringing the mission together, saying in its press release that she is
"honored to lead a team of explorers on a mission that will challenge
their perspectives of Earth, empower them to share their own stories, and
create lasting impact that will inspire generations to come".
Sanchez first announced her plan to fly
with an all-women crew on a Blue Origin rocket in 2023 in an interview with
Vogue, saying they were "paving the way for women".
This is the latest group of celebrities to
embark on a flight to space.
Bezos himself flew on the company's first
manned mission in 2021.
Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin
Galactic, made a trip aboard his company's VSS Unity spacecraft in July 2021.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk, however, is yet
to make a trip.
From BBC (edited)
