Blue Origin just launched pop star Katy Perry and five other women on the first manned rocket launch without a man on board since 1963.
A New Shepard rocket lifted off with Blue Origin's NS-31 mission Monday morning (April 14), completing the company's 31st launch overall and 11th crewed suborbital spaceflight. New Shepard launched with Blue Origin's "RSS Kármán Line" space capsule, carrying Perry alongside crew members Gayle King, Lauren Sánchez, Aisha Bowe, Kerianne Flynn and Amanda Nguyen.
Liftoff occurred at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT) from Blue Origin's Launch Site One in West Texas. The whole flight lasted about 10.5 minutes, which offered the NS-31 passengers about four minutes of weightlessness as their capsule arced above the Kármán line — the internationally recognized "boundary" of space that resides at an altitude of 62 miles (100 kilometers). Though their time in space was short, all six stepped away from the experience feeling a serene sense of awe and humble amazement. "It is the highest high, and it is surrender to the unknown, trust," Perry said after landing.
In post-landing interviews with Charissa Thompson for Blue Origin after the crew exited their space capsule, each NS-31 crew member spoke about how profound a journey the launch was, and the deeper connection they now feel to Earth and humanity.
Sánchez led the NS-31 mission. She is an author and journalist with anchor experience at several news stations, as well as the recipient of an Emmy award in 1999. She is a licensed helicopter pilot and founded the first female-owned and operated aerial film and production company. Sánchez has been engaged Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos since 2016.
"Earth looked so... it was so quiet, it was just quiet.
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We're so connected. More connected than you realize. Because you just see...all these things that divide us. But we're not.
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It makes me want to come back and just hug everyone and be like, 'Oh my god, we're in this! We're in this together!'
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It was a feeling of joy and camaraderie. It was a feeling of gratefulness.
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I hope, that more people get to see this, because I feel I don't even know how much it's going to change me."
Sánchez also reflected on the rocket launch of Alan Shepard — the first American to fly in space — which, like NS-31, also flew a short but impactful suborbital mission.
Amanda Nguyễn made history aboard NS-31 by becoming the first Vietnamese and Southeast Asian woman to fly to space. She is a bioastronautics research scientist with a degree from Harvard University, and a resume that includes work with the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences and NASA. Nguyễn recently authored a book, "Saving Five: A Memoir of Hope," about her experience as a survivor of sexual assault, and she hopes her spaceflight can be an inspiration to other survivors striving to realize their own dreams.
"I just want all survivors to know that you can heal. No dream is too wild. If it's so wild, out there — like going to space — you can absolutely make it through. And it can absolutely be possible."
Each crew member brought an assortment of small items with them to space, including individual "zero-g indicators," which are used to signal that a spacecraft has reached microgravity when they begin floating around the cabin. Nguyễn brought two zero-g indicators: a piece of paper with a promise she had written to herself after her sexual assault, and another item she said she wasn't originally sure if she would bring or not.
"It's the hospital band from the day it happened," Nguyễn said. "I got to honor her today," she added, referring to her past self.
Kerianne Flynn is a film producer known for the movies such as "This Changes Everything" (2018) and "LILLY" (2024), which showcase her passion for storytelling and community-building. Flynn has spent much of the past decade focused on her nonprofit work with The Allen-Stevenson School, The High Line, and Hudson River Park, according to her bio on Blue Origin's website.
She carried a feather to space, symbolic of Blue Origin, gifted to her by friends before her flight. "It felt so special to have it close to my heart and in space with me," she said. "I feel like it helped me take all of them with me on this journey."
"I have almost no words. It was the most incredible experience of my life to be up there and see such vast darkness in space, and look down on our planet. The moon was so beautiful. I felt like that was a special gift just for me."
Gayle King is most known for her prolific career in journalism and as co-host of the TV show "CBS Mornings." King was invited to the flight by Sánchez, which she says took her far out of her comfort zone. King has an outspoken fear of flying, and doesn't have her ears pierced for fear of the pain.
"Eleanor Roosevelt once said, 'courage is doing something that scares you, but you do it anyway.' And I stepped out of my comfort zone in a way that I never thought was possible for me. And now that I've done it, I really do feel I can take on anything.
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It's oddly quiet when you get up there. It's really quiet and peaceful. And you look down at the planet, you think, 'That's where we came from?' And to me, it's such a reminder about how we need to do better, and be better human beings.
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It's so nasty and so vitriolic nowadays. If everybody could experience that peace that we had up there, and the kindness, and what it takes to do what we did, all the people that it took to get us up there and get us back safely... I'll never, ever, ever forget.
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We are forever bonded. You can't go through what we went through — to look out for each other, to help each other — and not be changed by that. It really is a true sisterhood."
King said her fears were eased because the NS-31 crew was "set up for success."
"The training was so freaking good," King said. "It went exactly as they told us."
Every boom that you heard, the drogues coming out, the parachutes coming out. It went exactly as they said.
Gayle King
Aisha Bowe is a former NASA rocket scientist with degrees in aerospace and space systems engineering. She is CEO of STEMBoard, founded LINGO, a STEM education technology company, and is a member of the National Society of Black Engineers and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
"I picked the right dream," Bowe said after her spaceflight. "I'm ready to go back."
"I will never be the same.
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When you get up there and you see the Earth, and it's so beautiful, and it just fills the screen, and it's not just your window, it's everybody's window. And there're no boundaries, there're no borders, there's just Earth. It's incredible.
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Dream it, plan it and go and do it. I never really thought I could go to space, although I really wanted to go. And today just confirms that dreams are real, and sometimes reality is wrong."
Finally, Katy Perry has officially lived up to her hit single, "Firework," and showed us what she's worth by literally shooting across the sky — just as she told all of us to do. The pop star was the last to be interviewed after the NS-31 capsule touchdown, and was very reticent for the spotlight of the mission to fall on her.
It is the highest high, and it is surrender to the unknown, trust.
Katy Perry
She said her spaceflight now ranks as the second most incredible experience of her lifetime — the first being the birth of her daughter. Perry said her daughter is one of the reasons she ultimately decided to join the NS-31 crew. "I wanted to model courage and worthiness and fearlessness."
"I think that it's not about me, it's not about singing my songs. It's about a collective energy in there. It's about us. It's about making space for future women and taking up space and belonging, and it's about this wonderful world that we see right out there and appreciating it. This is all for the benefit of Earth.
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It is the highest high, and it is surrender to the unknown, trust. This whole journey is not just about going to space. It's the training, it's the team, it's the whole thing. I couldn't recommend this experience more. This is up there with all the different tools that I've learned in my life; from meditation to the Hoffman process. This is up there because what you're doing is really finding the love for yourself. You've got to trust in yourself on this journey."
As one of her personal items, Perry brought a daisy, which she held up high after exiting the New Shepard capsule. Daisy is the name of Perry's daughter.
"Daisies are common flowers, but they grow through any condition. They grow through cement, they grow through cracks, they grow through walls. They are resilient. They are powerful. They are strong. They are everywhere. Flowers are, to me, God's smile, but it's also a reminder of our beautiful Earth and the flowers here, and God's smile and the beautiful magic that is everywhere, all around us, and even in a simple daisy."
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