Online Reporter
Billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin launched his fiancée Lauren Sanchez to space today with an all-female celebrity crew that included Katy Perry and Gayle King.
It was the latest wave in space tourism, where more of the rich and famous than ever before – or lucky and well-connected – can enter the zero-gravity realm traditionally dominated by professional astronauts.
Sanchez, a helicopter pilot and former TV journalist, invited the others along for the 10-minute, fully automated flight, packing on the star power with singer-songwriter Perry and CBS Mornings co-host King.
Also sharing the ride were film producer Kerianne Flynn; Aisha Bowe, a former Nasa engineer who started her own companies to promote science education; and Amanda Nguyen, a scientist who studied planets around other stars and now advocates for survivors of sexual violence.
Blue Origin declined to say how much the flight cost or who paid what.
The only other all-female crew in 64 years of human space flight was back in 1963. That is when Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova launched by herself, becoming the first woman in space. Tereshkova spent three days off the planet.
Even after the latest launch, women represent barely 15 per cent of the more than 700 people who have travelled into space.
Sanchez said she deliberately chose women to launch with her, each of them eager to inspire both the young and old to dream big, and even commissioned special flight suits.
“It’s an important moment for the future of commercial space travel and for humanity in general and for women all around,” Katy Perry said last week.
The launch brought out VIPs to West Texas, including Oprah Winfrey and several other women.
Bezos is an American businessman best known as the founder of Amazon, the world’s largest e-commerce and cloud computing company. -www.scmp.com
