Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket will carry Katy Perry on its historic all-female Blue Origin spaceflight

On board Blue Origin’s first all-female space voyage, Katy Perry, Lauren Sanchez, and four other women will create history.

Jeff Bezos’ space tourism rocket is scheduled to launch pop sensation Katy Perry and five other ladies into space.

CBS host Gayle King and Bezos’s fiancée Lauren Sánchez will accompany the performer.

The launch window opens at 08:30 local time (14:30 WAT), and the New Shepard rocket is scheduled to blast off from its launch location in West Texas.

The crew will experience a brief period of weightlessness during the approximately 11-minute trip, which will lift them more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) above Earth and exceed the globally recognized boundary of space.

Film producer Kerianne Flynn, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, and former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe are all on board.

The crew won’t be using their hands to operate the spacecraft because it is completely self-sufficient and doesn’t need pilots.

The rocket booster will land about two miles from the launch location, and the capsule will return to Earth with a soft landing aided by a parachute.

“I would have believed you if you had told me that I would be a member of the first all-female crew in space. As a child, I could imagine anything. I never stopped seeing the world with optimistic WONDER, despite the fact that we didn’t have much growing up. Perry stated in a post on social media.

According to Blue Origin, Soviet Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to fly into space on a solo trip onboard the spacecraft Vostok 6 more than 60 years ago, marking the final all-female spaceflight.

Although there haven’t been any more all-female space missions since, women have made many important achievements.

Bezos, the billionaire businessman who built Amazon, established Blue Origin, a private space enterprise, in 2000.

A $150,000 (£114,575.85) deposit is needed to secure a seat, highlighting the limited number of these early flights even though Blue Origin has not disclosed the full cost of tickets.

The corporation is creating long-term space infrastructure, such as lunar landing devices and reusable rockets, in addition to its suborbital tourist business.

Because of its totally reusable architecture and booster that returns to the launch pad for vertical landings after every flight, the New Shepard rocket is more affordable overall.

US law mandates that astronauts undergo extensive training tailored to their particular roles.

According to Blue Origin, its New Shepard passengers receive two days of training that emphasizes physical fitness, emergency procedures, safety information, and zero gravity procedures.

There are also two support personnel known as Crew Member Seven; one of them continuously guides the astronauts, while the other keeps in touch with the control center throughout the voyage.

The popularity of space travel has drawn criticism for being overly exclusive and harmful to the environment.

Proponents contend that private businesses are boosting innovation and expanding access to space.

“Our civilization needs to expand beyond our planet for so many reasons,” Professor Brian Cox told the BBC in 2024, adding that he thinks cooperation between NASA and private companies is a good first step.
However, detractors bring up important environmental issues.

They claim that the likelihood of damaging the ozone layer rises with the number of rocket launches.

According to a 2022 study by Professor Eloise Marais of University College London, the warming effect of rocket soot in the upper atmosphere is 500 times larger than that of soot released by planes that are closer to Earth.

Most individuals cannot afford the exorbitant cost of space tourism, making these costly trips unaffordable for the majority.

Actress Olivia Munn was among the critics who questioned the venture’s optics, saying on Today with Jenna & Friends that “there’s a lot of people who can’t even afford eggs.”

Tim Peake, an astronaut, has argued for the importance of human space travel, particularly when it comes to addressing global concerns like climate change.

“I personally am a fan of using space for science and for the benefit of everybody back on Earth, so in that respect, I feel disappointed that space is being tarred with that brush,” Peake said at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, expressing his disappointment that space exploration is increasingly perceived as a hobby for the wealthy.