Blue Origin’s women-only mission is ready to send celebrities and scientists on a space trip

Six women are due to climb aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket ship today for a short suborbital space trip that’s notable because of a crew that includes 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 is set for no earlier than 8:30 a.m. CT (6:30 a.m. PT). Blue Origin plans to stream coverage of the countdown and what’s expected to be an 11-minute mission via its website.

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

Blue Origin says NS-31 will be 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 are 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 on CBS.

The other three crew members on NS-31 have 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’s due to become 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 been talking 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.

Today’s flight plan aims to follow 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. New Shepard’s hydrogen-powered booster is designed to send 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.

Inside the crew capsule, the spacefliers should experience a few minutes of weightlessness and get a wide-angle view of the Earth below and the black sky above. Then they would get back in their seats for a parachute-assisted touchdown amid the Texas scrublands. Meanwhile, the booster would make its own autonomous landing on a pad not far from the launch site.

Bowe has been prepped to conduct three research experiments, including studies focusing on plant biology and human physiology. The flight will also carry postcards from students around the world as part of an educational campaign organized by the Club for the Future, Blue Origin’s non-profit foundation.

The company doesn’t typically discuss the ticket prices for its suborbital spaceflights, but it seems safe to assume that Sanchez and her crewmates aren’t paying 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.