This Spring, pop star Katy Perry will fly off into space with five other women on the next mission of New Shepard, a space tourism rocket owned by Jeff Bezos’ private company, Blue Origin.
This flight will be the 11th one carrying passengers out into space by New Shepard. The flight will last around ten minutes and will take the all-female crew 62 miles over the Earth’s surface. For comparison, the International Space Station orbits about 250 miles above Earth.
Perry is a global superstar, being Capitol Records’ biggest-selling female artist in their history with more than 155 billion streams. She is also known for her philanthropic work. She is not only an ambassador for UNICEF Goodwill, where she advocates for children’s rights to health, education, equality, and protection, she has also started her own Firework Foundation, which empowers children from underserved communities through the arts. Perry “hopes her journey encourages her daughter and others to reach for the stars, literally and figuratively,” Blue Origin shared in their announcement of the mission.
Aside from Perry, the crew is made up of five other prominent women including former NASA aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe, bioastronautics researcher Amanda Nguyen, co-host of “CBS Mornings” Gayle King, film producer Kerianne Flynn, and helicopter pilot Lauren Sánchez, who is also engaged to Bezos. This group of women will be the first all-female flight crew since the first woman in space, Russian astronaut Valentina Tereshkova went on a solo mission in 1963.
Reactions to Perry’s upcoming space excursion include confusion and indifference, like from junior Jordan Jeffreys, “I am quite confused why she was chosen to go to space… cause like, what credentials does she have? Why her? I just don’t understand,” and art teacher Mr. Davis, “[I’m] not a big Katy Perry fan, so I really don’t care… I think if you have enough money you can do whatever you want, and if you don’t have very much you can’t do anything you want.”
However, some seem to endorse this selection and even look forward to the trip. Freshman Ella Barlow says, “I think of all pop stars, they chose well. I think Katy Perry deserves to go to space,” while junior Reagan Chapman shares, “I hope she writes a song about this. I would tune in.”
AP Gov teacher and big Katy Perry fan Mr. Segal exclaims, “As the rockets blasting off, I’m just going to be blasting the music in my house to celebrate.”
