Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is launching its first all-female flight to space Monday, making it the 11th civilian launch since its debut.
Katy Perry, talk show host Gayle King and Bezos’ fiancé Lauren Sanchez are among the women set to take flight on the suborbital rocket on Monday. Film producer Kerianne Flynn, NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe and civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen will also be on board.
Per Good Morning America, Perry and her crew underwent final training sessions at their rocket’s launch site in Van Horn, Texas, a few days ahead of the flight.
KATY PERRY HEADING TO SPACE WITH LAUREN SANCHEZ AND BLUE ORIGIN’S ALL-FEMALE CREW
The women debuted their Blue Origin flight suits on social media over the weekend, which featured a NASA patch, their last names and the Blue Origin logo on a navy jumpsuit.
“Usually, you know, these suits are made for a man. Then they get tailored to fit a woman,” Sanchez, who helped redesign the suits, told The New York Times.
“I think the suits are elegant, but they also bring a little spice to space.”
Sanchez enlisted the help of Monse co-founders Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim to create the jumpsuits for the all-female team. Sanchez said Perry previously noted, “We’re putting the ‘a–’ in astronaut.”
Bezos founded his private aerospace company in 2000, and they started sending humans to space in 2021 with New Shepard.
“Star Trek” icon William Shatner was historically on the NS-18 mission to space. The entire trip took about 11 minutes from takeoff to landing, according to reports.
Below is a look at other stars who have breached the edge of space – or are interested in doing so.
Perry and her fellow crew members recently sat down for an interview with Elle, during which the “Roar” hitmaker revealed how she is preparing for the flight, including her plans to get glammed up by her hair and makeup team before liftoff.
“Space is going to finally be glam. Let me tell you something. If I could take glam up with me, I would do that. We are going to put the ‘a–‘ in astronaut,” Perry said.
Along with preparing her flight day beauty look, Perry told Elle that she has also given some thought to the items that she plans to take on the ride. Each Blue Origin passenger is allowed to bring personal items within a three-pound limit during the flight.
“I’m going to bring something that has life in it just to remind us how precious the Earth is,” she said.
Perry is excited and ready to finally fulfill one of her lifelong dreams.
KATY PERRY CREDITS SPIRITUALITY FOR GETTING HER THROUGH ‘TOUGH TIMES’
“I have wanted to go to space for almost 20 years,” Perry said. “I was investigating all of the possible commercial options. Even when Blue Origin was first talking about commercial travel to space, I was like, ‘Sign me up! I’m first in line.’ And then they called me, and I was like, ‘Really? I get an invite?’”
“And then they told me about it being the first all-female crew,” she continued. “I take pause in those moments and ask the universe to give me confirmations. And I really felt very sure when they sent me the picture of the space pod, because on the front of the pod is a feather, and that’s my mom’s nickname for me.”
King will join Perry on the trip to space on April 14.
In February, King said in her announcement, “I don’t know how to explain being terrified and excited at the same time. It’s like how I felt about to deliver a baby.”
“I thought I wanted to open myself up to new adventures and step out of my comfort zone,” King said on “CBS Mornings.”
Prior to agreeing, King spoke with her kids and Oprah Winfrey.
“Once Kirby and Will and Oprah was fine with it, I was fine. I thought Oprah would say no, no. She said, ‘I think if you don’t do it, when they all come back and you had the opportunity to do it, you will be kicking yourself.’ She’s right,” King said.
Despite her fears, King is ready to get to space.
“I feel well-prepared. I believe in Blue Origin, what they’re doing. I am really excited and actually looking forward to it,” she said.
During the group’s interview with Elle, King told the outlet she will bring photos and one of her grandson’s possessions, adding that she would like to have musical accompaniment during their journey.
“I don’t even know if we could listen to music, but I like the idea of that,” the “CBS Mornings” host said.
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In 2021, the “Star Trek” actor made history when he became the oldest person to travel to space after flying aboard Bezos’ Blue Origin New Shepard rocket.
After the trip, Shatner revealed that his ticket to space brought “deep grief” when he returned to Earth.
He compared going back on a galactic journey to “revisiting a love affair” and told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that he should probably “let it alone.”
Shatner’s deep connection to space exploration began more than 50 years ago when he starred as Captain James T. Kirk on the legendary television series, “Star Trek.”
“What I experienced was not so much the flight into space, but my observation,” he recalled. “Everybody knows we live on a small rock and that up to 12,500 feet oxygen is there. And after that, as you go higher, you get into a dead zone. So there’s the Karman line is 50 miles up. Oxygen is two miles up. We live on a small rock. I saw the beginning of the curvature of the Earth.”
“If I followed through, I could make a circle of this rock we live on. We are so negligible. We are so nothing. We are this small rock and this negligible solar system which is beside a mediocre star in a galaxy that is barely larger.”
WATCH: WILLIAM SHATNER REFLECTS ON HIS TIME SPENT IN SPACE
He added, “We’re nothing. We are nothing, and that’s what I saw. And what else I saw was the tragedy of the extinction of life.”
The “T.J. Hooker” star was overcome with emotion upon landing. He explained that his tearful response to safely making it back to land was purely out of “grief” for the planet.
“The subject of ecology has interested me all my life,” he said. “I know a little bit more about it than most people, and I’m in deep grief for what’s happening to the Earth, and it was exacerbated by being up in space.”
Billionaire Richard Branson beat Bezos to space by nine days.
Branson, the founder of Virgin Galactic, took a trip 53.5 miles into the atmosphere in July 2021, which NASA and the U.S. Airforce recognize as the edge of space.
The historic venture resulted in some critics asking if it was a good idea to launch costly, fuel-guzzling rockets into space, but Branson believes the trip was worth the cost.
“I think they’re not fully educated to what space does for Earth,” Branson said on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” in 2021.
“It’s connecting the billions of people who are not connected – on telephones, on other things. Every single spaceship that we’ve sent… putting satellites up there, monitoring different things around the world like the degradation of rainforests, monitoring food distribution, even monitoring things like climate change,” Branson continued.
“These things are essential for us back here on Earth. So we need more spaceships going up to space, we don’t need less.”
Pete Davidson did not actually make it to space, but was originally planning to.
In 2022, it was announced that Davidson would join Blue Origin’s New Shepard flight on the NS-20 mission. The original launch date was changed and Davidson was no longer able to make it.
Davidson was going as Bezos’ guest. The company has not disclosed the ticket price for paying customers. However, in 2021, an anonymous bidder paid $28 million at an auction to be aboard Bezos’ flight, according to the New York Times.
Other outlets have reported that a standard ticket on Blue Origin ranges from $200,000 to $500,000.
Lance Bass is trained to go into space, but has never made the trip.
According to the National Space Society, the *NSYNC star underwent training in Star City, Russia, in 2002 and became a certified cosmonaut. A cosmonaut is a Russian term for astronaut, or someone who was trained and certified by the Russian space program.
“He was certified both by the Russian Space Program and by NASA for a mission on the Soyuz TMA-1 spacecraft to the International Space Station,” according to NSS.
Financial backing for the mission fell through, so Bass was unable to go to space. According to NSS, Bass is still fluent in Russian from his training.
In 2013, Justin Bieber purchased a ticket onboard Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo for $250,000, but never made it to space.
At the time, Branson took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to welcome Bieber and his manager Scooter Braun to the Virgin Galactic family.
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“Great to hear @justinbieber & @scooterbraun are latest @virgingalactic future astronauts. Congrats, see you up there!” he wrote over a decade ago.
Bieber replied, “@richardbranson @scooterbraun @virgingalactic let’s shoot a music video in SPACE!! #nextLEVEL.”
The popstar never made it to space to shoot a music video. Virgin Galactic had years of delays sending civilians to space and only began commercial trips in 2023.
In 2014, reports surfaced that an individual paid $1 million at the amfAR auction to go to space with Leonardo DiCaprio and Virgin Galactic.
According to Space, DiCaprio was set to board Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo in 2015. According to the outlet, in 2014, more than 700 people had put down deposits to board the commercial trip to space.
As previously stated, Virgin Galactic delayed their flights for years and only resumed in 2023. DiCaprio has not yet been to space, but he has expressed interest in climate change and the environment.
