Pop star Katy Perry on Monday completed a brief foray into space with an all-female crew on one of billionaire Jeff Bezos’ rockets.
The Firework and California Gurls singer was lofted more than 100km above the Earth’s surface in a Blue Origin vessel.
Five other women — including Bezos’ fiancee Lauren Sanchez — were on the flight, which took off from western Texas shortly after 8:30am before safely landing again 10 minutes later.
Photo: EPA-EFE / Blue Origin
The flight brought the passengers beyond the Karman line — the internationally recognized boundary of space.
One of the other passengers, TV presenter Gayle King, said Perry sang What a Wonderful World in space.
“It’s a 10 out of 10. That’s my review. Definitely go for it,” the singer said after she was safely back on Earth.
Their fully automated craft rose vertically before the crew capsule detached mid-flight, later falling back to the ground slowed by parachutes and a retro rocket.
The jubilant women then emerged, with Perry kissing the ground after exiting the capsule.
“I think this experience has shown me you never know how much love is inside of you, like how much love you have to give and how loved you are until the day you launch,” she said.
The mission was the first all-female space crew since Valentina Tereshkova’s historic solo flight in 1963.
It was also the 11th sub-orbital crewed operation by Blue Origin, which has offered space tourism experiences for several years.
The company does not publicly communicate the price of trips made possible by its New Shepard rocket.
They were expected to have a brief period when the women could unbuckle from their seats and float in zero gravity.
Perry, launched onto the international stage with her 2008 hit I Kissed a Girl, was traveling alongside Sanchez, King, film producer Kerianne Flynn, former NASA scientist Aisha Bowe and Amanda Nguyen, founder of a campaign group against sexual violence.
They follow 52 previous Blue Origin passengers, including longtime Star Trek leading man William Shatner.
King’s close friend — talk show host Oprah Winfrey — was among those watching the launch in Texas.
“It’s oddly quiet when you get up there ... you look down at the planet and think: ‘That’s where we came from?’ And to me it’s such a reminder about how we need to do better and be better,” King said.
Perry told Elle magazine that she was taking part “for my daughter Daisy,” whom she shares with actor Orlando Bloom, “to inspire her to never have limits on her dreams.”
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