Blue Origin launch: Katy Perry kisses ground after returning from space
Katy Perry kisses the ground on her return from space
Katy Perry bent down and kissed the ground after returning to Earth from a space flight with an all-female crew. The singer held up a daisy as she left the rocket capsule in a signal to her daughter, who was looking on. She exited the capsule alongside the other crew members, who briefly experienced weightlessness some 62 miles above sea level. As it had blasted into space, she had serenaded them with a rendition of Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World.
Perry was one of a crew of six who made the first all-female trip into space since Valentina Tereshkova’s historic flight more than 60 years ago.
The other crew members on the journey, which began at around 2.30pm BST (9.30am local time) were Gayle King, an American journalist, Lauren Sanchez, the fiancee of the Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, Amanda Nguyen, a scientist, Aisha Bowe, an aerospace engineer, and Kerianne Flynn, a film producer
Their 11-minute journey was watched by celebrities including Oprah Winfrey, Kris Jenner and Khloe Kardashian, who had gathered near the launch site in west Texas and whooped and cheered as the craft returned to Earth. The crew travelled on the New Shepard rocket, made by Blue Origin, a space tourism company owned by Mr Bezos.
They could be heard shouting “look at the Moon” as the rocket gained altitude roughly four minutes after launching, then screaming as the capsule descended via parachute to land in the desert.
“It was almost a full Moon,” said Ms Sanchez, who added that seeing the Earth from space made her realise that “we’re so connected, more connected than we realise”. She grew tearful as she described how “six women made the same flight” as Alan Shepard, the first American to reach space in May 1961, after whom the New Shepard rocket has been named.
As they left the rocket capsule, each of the crew was embraced by Mr Bezos, who had made the journey alongside William Shatner, the Star Trek actor, in 2021.