Broadcast journalist Gale King and singer Katy Perry were scheduled to make a short space trip to space on Monday on a flight run by Jeff Bezos' private company Blue Origin. It's probably the first time a crew of an all-female has gone to space since 1963.
Their flight at Blue Origin's new Shepard Rocket was scheduled to take off from Blue Origin's launch site 1 in West Texas, about 120 miles southeast of El Paso. The launch could take place as early as 9:30am in the East.
This was the 11th flight for the new Shepherd program, flying 52 people, including repeating astronauts above the Kalman Line.
The new Shepherd Rocket flight, which offers a few minutes of weightlessness, has no pilots.
Bezos' fiancee, former broadcast journalist Lauren Sanchez, was also scheduled to board a flight called the NS-31 Mission. The couple's wedding is reportedly set in Venice this summer.
The other passenger is Aisha Bow, a former NASA rocket scientist, who told Elle Magazine that she was the first person in the Bahamas legacy. Film producer Kerianne Flynn. and Amanda Nuguen, a research scientist at Bioastronauts and a prominent advocate for sexual assault survivors.
According to Blue Origin, Ngguen will be the first Vietnamese woman to go to space.
“It was a dream come true, and for me it was a postponed dream,” Nuguen told El.
She said she studied astrophysics by working for NASA, but after being sexually assaulted, she turned her focus to activism.
“Gender-based violence is a big reason why many women in STEM don't continue training. I was one of them,” she said, referring to science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
It is the first space flight to lay an entire female crew since Valentina Tereshkova flew solo for the Soviet Union in 1963, becoming the first woman to reach space.
However, some critics are plagued by the suggestion that all female crews represent moments of feminist progress. The new Shepard program, the centerpiece of Blue Origin's Space Tourism Business, is wealthy, powerful and a way to get to space.
Actress Olivia Munn called the trip a “slightly gluttonous eater” during a guest appearance this month on “Today is Jenna and Friends.”
“I know this isn't cool, but there are so many other things in the world right now that are very important,” Mann said. “What are you guys going to do in space?”
In an interview with “CBS Morning,” which aired Friday, host Vladimir duthiers asked King if he was worried that the flight was an advertisement for Amazon founder Bezos. Duthiers said Bezos is under scrutiny due to business practices on Amazon and ownership of the Washington Post.
Amazon warehouse workers and delivery drivers complain about dangerous working conditions. In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission and 17 states sued Amazon, accusing them of protecting their monopoly on online retail.
The Washington Post has had a wave of resignation in recent months amid concerns over leadership, including Bezos' decision to redirect the opinion section of the newspaper to advocate “personal freedom and the free market.”
“Listen, that's bothering me too,” King said. “There were some questions and decisions he actually made.
“But in this particular case, I think Vlad, this is much bigger than one man and one company,” she continued. “I chose to separate the two.”
Bezos spent billions on blue origins and talked about how he envisions a future where humans live in space colonies. He was on Blue Origin's first suborbital passenger flight in 2021.
The new Shepherd Rocket is named after Alan Shepherd, the first American to reach space in 1961 and one of the astronauts who walked the moon.
