Blue Origin launches all-female, star-studded crew to edge of space: ‘Godspeed, ladies’

Blue Origin launches all-female space crew

Gayle King and Katy Perry, along with other star-studded crew members, launched to the edge of space Monday morning and successfully touched back down to Earth.

VAN HORN, Texas – A six-person commercial launch blasted off from West Texas on Monday morning, sending up the first mission consisting entirely of women, all with impressive resumes that now include spaceflight. 

Blue Origin’s New Shepard mission 31 (NS-31) launched from Jeff Bezos’ company's facilities in Van Horn, Texas, just after 8:30 a.m. CT.

The crew inside the New Shepard capsule’s six seats included journalist Gayle King, global popstar Katy Perry, filmmaker Kerianne Flynn, bioastronautics scientist and advocate Amanda Nguyễn, STEMBoard CEO Aisha Bowe and journalist and author Lauren Sánchez.

"Godspeed, ladies," Blue Origin webcast host and journalist Kristin Fisher said at takeoff. 

The NS-31 crew. 

(Blue Origin)

Monday’s launch drew a star-studded crowd to view the event, including King’s best friend, Oprah Winfrey, and Kris and Khloe Kenner. Perry’s young daughter, Daisy, wore a spacesuit to cheer her mom on for the launch. 

"Gayle has been there for me for hundreds of events. I can’t even remember them all, but I will never forget this day," Winfrey said. 

The spaceflight took the women 65 miles above Earth, about 3 miles over the internationally recognized boundary of space known as the Kármán line. During weightlessness, Perry sang some of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World," surprising her fellow crew members, who expected one of her original hit songs. 

"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," Perry said. "It’s about this wonderful world that we see right out there and appreciating it."

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King was candid about her fear of flying on airplanes, let alone a rocket ship, ahead of the launch. Blue Origin flight trainers told King she was their "best success story" because of her fears. 

"I stepped out of my comfort zone in a way that I never thought was possible for me," King said of overcoming her fears. "Now that I've done it, I really do feel that I can do anything."

Oprah Winfrey watches her friend Gayle King launch on a Blue Shepard rocket. 

The New Shepard touched down in the West Texas desert around 9:45 a.m. CT after about a 10-minute spaceflight. Cheers and celebrations could be heard over the mission control audio.

Each woman celebrated their return to Earth as they stepped out of the capsule where they were greeted by friends and family.  

Perry held up a daisy to the sky as an ode to her daughter while she exited the hatch. 

King and Perry both kissed the Earth. 

"I just want to have a moment with the ground," King said, touching her hands to the ground. "Thank you, Jesus."