Jeff Bezos’ fiancee, Lauren Sanchez, leads all female crews, including pop singer Katy Perry and CBS Morning, including co-hosted Gale King for this morning’s short space trip.
Six women on Bezos’ Blue Origin’s new Shepherd Rocket include Aisha Bow, Amanda Ngguen and Kerianneuflin, who are about to lift it from the company’s West Texas launch site during a window that opens at 9:30am.
This is the 11th human space flight of the new Shepherd, making it the 31st overall mission. The flight will send new Shepherd capsules on a short 10-12 minute trip. This allows passengers to experience zero gravity for several minutes and see the curvature of the Earth before the capsule returns to a parachute-assisted landing.
They travel over the Kalman Line, which is an internationally recognized highlands, approximately 62 miles tall.
When she became the first woman in space on the Vostok 6 mission on June 16, 1963, she was the first female crew to head into space since the solo mission of Soviet astronaut Valentina Tereshkova.
King said she was nervous but was told she was her friend to take advantage of it.
“I’m just as excited as I do, so when we come back, I’m happy,” she said prior to launching.
Sanchez is a former entertainment television journalist. She organized the crew. Bow is a former NASA rocket scientist, and Nguyen A Bioastronautics Research Scientist and Flynn have built their fashion careers and have produced films such as “This Changes Everything.”
This mission will increase to a 58 human figure as it reaches the edge of space, including the four people that Blue Origin flew twice in 2021.
Bezos was one of the first in 2021, but other flights featured flights like NFL Hall of Fame Star Trek William Shatner, the daughter of Alan Shepherd, the first American named after the Rocket, and co-hosts of “Good Morning America” Michael Strahan and Laura Shepherd Churchley.
He told the crew that the trip was “the most surprising and deepest experience.”
“I’m very excited for you. I don’t want to get off. I want to go with you,” he said. “When I come back, I can’t wait to hear how it changed. I love you. I’ll see you soon. Godspeed. GradatimFerociter.”
Gradatim Ferociter is Blue Origin’s Latin motto, converted to “fast stepwise.”
Central Florida couple Mark and Sharon Haggle were among the four who were two riders who traveled in both 2022 and this November. Another Central Floridian on the trip was Brevard County billionaire Steve Young.
Blue Origin knocked out the finest with his new Shepherd Rocket, sending the tallest (6 feet 5 inches Strahan), the oldest (90-year-old Edd Wight Jr.) and the youngest (18-year-old Oliver Daymen) into space.
Space tourism flights are just part of Bezos’ company’s business. This states that this first flight of the much larger left new Glen Rocket from Cape Canaveral this January, with the second one being released this spring. Also on the Blue Origin plates are plans for the Commercial Space Station and Blue Moon Lunar Lander.
Original issue: April 14, 2025 8:30am EDT
