Kety Perry will join Lauren Sanchez, Gayle King and others on a journey to space with an all-female crew.
The trio will be on board Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space flight with film producer Kerianne Flynn, NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe and civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, according to a Press release shared Thursday. The flight will launch this spring.
Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket carrying Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyn, Kerianne Flynn, Gayle King, Katy Perry, and Lauren Sánchez lifted off from West Texas at around 08:30 local time (14:30 BST)
“This mission will be the 11th human flight for the New Shepard program and the 31st in its history,” Blue Origin stated. “To date, the program has flown 52 people above the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary of space. This is the first all-female flight crew since Valentina Tereshkova’s solo spaceflight in 1963.”
King reacted to the news on Thursday’s episode of “CBS Mornings.”
“I have to tell you, I’m so afraid,” King emotionally told her co-hosts. “I am, I’m so afraid, but I’m also so excited about it.”
The TV host was approached in November about the upcoming flight and admitted it was “never [her] dream” to travel to space. However, after consulting with her kids and Oprah Winfrey, King chose to change her dreams.
“I don’t know how to explain being terrified and excited at the same time,” she told the audience. “It’s like how I felt about to deliver a baby.”
A view from inside the cabin as it entered space. The women on board were given a view of the Earth many have only seen in pictures
Founder of Blue Origin Jeff Bezos opened the capsule door as the crew landed back on Earth, and the first to exit the pod was his fiancée Lauren Sánchez
We’ve just been hearing from the six women who started their day jetting off to space in Blue Origin’s New Shepard vessel. Here are their key takeaways:
This flight wasn’t a ride, we demonstrated unity in space – Katy Perry
King also shared appreciation for her fellow crew members.
“These women are so bada–,” she said. “They have such amazing life stories.”
Fox News Digital reached out to representatives for Perry and Sanchez regarding their decision to travel to space.
“Katy is honored to be a part of Blue Origin’s first all-female crew and hopes her journey encourages her daughter and others to reach for the stars, literally and figuratively,” Blue Origin’s press release stated.
Sanchez, who has been romantically involved with Bezos since 2019, has a goal of inspiring “the next generation of explorers.” The former journalist and Bezos got engaged in May 2023.
“If someone would have told me that I would be able to go to space once day, I would have definitely, well, I don’t know, laughed,” Sanchez said in a video shared on Instagram. “I can’t believe it’s happening.”
Perry and King are not the first celebrities to make the journey to space with Blue Origin. William Shatner traveled to space in October 2021, becoming the oldest person to do so at the time. Shatner recalled his experience in space during an interview with Fox News Digital.
WATCH: WILLIAM SHATNER EXPLAINS WHY HIS TRIP TO SPACE ‘FELT LIKE A FUNERAL’
“When I landed and came out of the spaceship, I was overwhelmed by a feeling and I started to weep,” Shatner, who was 90 years old at the time of his trip, remembered. “I didn’t know what I was crying about. And it took me a couple of hours to be by myself to figure out what’s the matter with me.
“And then I realized I was in grief for this beautiful world that I could see more clearly from up in space… This planet that took 5 billion years to evolve into what it is now. And all the multitude of things that we human beings can love and be aware of that are so beautiful. Never mind the elephants and the great predators and all that stuff… but the stuff today. The child, your fingers. I mean, everything abounds that is a miracle and is beautiful — and we’re destroying it.”
“That was my overwhelming feeling of, ‘Oh, my God, what are we doing to this tiny rock?'” the actor added.