Among the all-female crew on the next voyage of New Shepard, the space tourism rocket run by Jeff Bezos’ private firm, Blue Origin, are singer and songwriter Katy Perry and television journalist and program presenter Gayle King.
Although no launch date has been set, Blue Origin revealed the roster on Thursday in advance of a planned spaceflight this spring. It will also feature former NASA engineer Aisha Bowe, research scientist Amanda Nguyen, film producer Kerianne Flynn, and helicopter pilot and Mr. Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sánchez.
The spring launch will mark New Shepard’s eleventh passenger trip and thirty-first mission in total. The suborbital rocket bears the name of Alan Shepard, one of the astronauts who walked on the moon and the first American to enter space in 1961.
The entirely reusable vehicle transports passengers to an altitude of over 62 miles in just over 10 minutes. In comparison, the International Space Station’s crew members circle around 250 miles above the planet.
In 2021, the year of Blue Origin’s first crewed trip, Mr. Bezos, the creator of Amazon and one of the richest men on the planet, was one of the first people on board New Shepard.
Other members of a New Shepard crew include Michael Strahan, co-host of “Good Morning America,” who flew on a mission in 2021; Edward Dwight, who at 90 years old reached space in 2024, more than 60 years after being passed over as the first Black astronaut; and William Shatner, who played the part of Captain Kirk on Star Trek in 2021.
