A rocket from billionaire Jeff Bezos' firm Blue Origin took off on a short flight carrying an all-woman crew to the edge of space. Pop star Katy Perry is among the passengers, along with Bezos' fiancee Lauren Sanchez.
The six women on board the flight will be able to experience weightlessness briefly during their 10-minute flightImage: Blue Origin/X/AFP
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A group of six women, including American singer-songwriter Katy Perry, blasted off into the upper limits of the Earth's atmosphere on Monday on a rocket from Blue Origin, the space company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Bezos's fiancee Lauren Sanchez, a US author and philanthropist, also joined the passengers on board the flight, which blasted off from western Texas at around 8:30 am (1330 GMT). The flight took around 10 minutes and the rocket returned safely to the ground by parachute.
The remaining crew included TV presenter Gayle King, film producer Kerianne Flynn, former NASA aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe and Amanda Nguyen, founder of a campaign group against sexual violence.
King's close friend, talk show legend 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.
Monday's venture features the first all-woman space crew since Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova's historic solo flight in 1963.
10-minute flight to the edge of space
The passengers were carried more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) above the Earth's surface — beyond the Karman line, the internationally recognized boundary of space.
The fully automated craft rose vertically before the crew capsule separated in mid-flight, before returning to the ground in a fall braked by parachutes and a retro rocket.
Perry, known for hits such as "Firework" and "California Gurls," and her co-passengers had the chance to experience weightlessness for a brief period during the trip.
"I feel super connected to love," Katy Perry said after landing back on Earth. She was holding a daisy flower, which she took into
space, to remind her of her daughter, Daisy.
Ahead of the trip she told Elle magazine that she was going on the trip for Daisy, whom she shares with actor Orlando Bloom, "to inspire her to never have limits on her dreams."
"I'm just so excited to see the inspiration through her eyes and the light in her eyes when she sees that rocket go, and she goes back to school the next day and says 'Mom went to space,'" Perry added.
But Blue Origin, which does not publicly say how much such a trip costs, aims in future to bring space tourists into orbit, competing directly with Elon Musk's SpaceX.
Virgin Galactic, founded by English business magnate Richard Branson, also offers similar sub-orbital trips to those wanting to travel to space and in possession of the high sums of money to do so.
Space tourism: Out of reach for most Earthlings
Space tourism began in 2001 with Italian-American millionaire Dennis Tito. Decades later, it's still a preserve of the rich and essentially white.
Image: Joe Skipper/REUTERS
An unbeatable record
Dennis Tito was and always will be the first civilian to travel to space. Tito had been a NASA engineer before turning to finance. He had always dreamed of a trip to space and is said to have paid $20 million to have his dream come true. It was hard convincing the big space agencies, but on April 28, 2001, Tito took a ride on a Soyuz rocket and spent six days at the International Space Station.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
In second place: Mark Shuttleworth
So, the name's fitting — shuttle-worth. But beyond that you'll quickly see a bias emerge. The first space tourists were all nerdy engineers… and all but one were MEN. South African Mark Shuttleworth, an internet and software engineer, flew a year after Tito and is celebrated as the first African in space. We're still waiting for the first Black African to make it — not for want of trying, though.
Image: picture alliance/AP Photo/M. Grachyev
Afronaut: Mandla Maseko
There's never been a Black African astronaut, neither agency-based nor a tourist. Mandla Maseko, a DJ from a township in Pretoria, South Africa, was due to be the first "Afronaut" until he died in a road accident at the age of 30. Maseko had won his chance through a private venture called Ace Apollo Space Academy. Seen as an inspirational figure, he said: "Defy gravity in everything that you do."
Image: Themba Hadebe/AP Photo/picture alliance
Third: Gregory Olsen
The third "official" space tourist was millionaire scientist Gregory Olsen. As Tito and Shuttleworth before him, Olsen bought his ticket through a company called Space Adventures and flew on a Russian Soyuz rocket. Olsen sold his own company, Sensors Unlimited, which under new owners Collins Aerospace is a NASA contractor, to pay his way. And he says he'd sell another firm to do it all again.
Image: Ivan Sekretarev/AP Photo/picture alliance
Fourth: Anousheh Ansari
So, it's not only boys who dream of the stars. Anousheh Ansari dreamed of space as a child as well. An engineer, internet technologist and co-founder of the XPRIZE Foundation, Ansari spent 11 days in space in 2006. She is described as the first astronaut of Iranian descent and the first Muslim woman in space. Her foundation champions itself as having "ignited a new era for commercial spaceflight."
Image: picture-alliance/Everett Collection
Science tourist: Helen Sharman
In 1991, Helen Sharman became the UK's first astronaut. Sharman conducted scientific experiments on the Soviet/Russian space station Mir, so hers was a mission in the traditional sense. We're including Sharman because her mission started as a commercial venture, but the company failed. The Soviets, whose idea it was anyway, paid in an act of bettering relations between them and the West.
Image: Alexander Mokletsov/dpa/Sputnik/picture alliance
The man who went twice: Charles Simonyi
Charles Simonyi is the first space tourist to have taken two trips. The billionaire software engineer first flew in 2007 and then again in 2009. But Simonyi holds other records, too. At the age of 13, he was selected as a junior astronaut in his native Hungary, and he developed the world's first WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) text editor, Bravo. He thinks humans will live in space one day.
Image: Mikhail Metzel/picture-alliance/dpa
Not just gaming around: Richard Garriott
British-American Richard Garriott (left) had an early interest in space travel due to the fact that his dad, Owen, was a NASA astronaut. Family friends and neighbors were astronauts, too. But he became a computer games developer and that's how he paid for his trip in 2008 — but he was also an investor in the space tourism company, Space Adventures. He's known to dress up as a medieval knight.
Image: AP
From circus of the sun to the stars: Guy Laliberte
A native of Quebec, Guy Laliberte is the original creative mind behind the world-famous circus company, Cirque du Soleil ("Circus of the Sun"). He spent 10 days at the International Space Station in 2009 and is the last of the old-school space tourists. Following Laliberte's trip, no tourists flew for over a decade. This shot of a Soyuz capsule returning to Earth was almost the end of it. Until…
Image: AP/NASA/BILL INGALLS
Richard Branson rears his head
Boys and their toys: Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson just had to pip Amazon-man Jeff Bezos at the post. His reward? The US Federal Aviation Administration grounded Branson's SpaceShipTwo for deviating from its flight path as it descended from the edge of space on July 11, 2021. Got to hand it to Branson, though — he's been at it for decades. SpaceShipOne won the Ansari XPRIZE in 2004.
Image: Andres Leighton/AP Photo/picture alliance
Just another dreamer: Jeff Bezos
Branson and Bezos (in hat) are competitors. They're also in a private space travel clique with common goals and would get nowhere without each other — or early test pilots Brian Binnie and Mike Melvill and investors like Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen or Peter Diamandis, co-founder of Space Adventures and XPRIZE. On July 20, 2021, Bezos and three others took a suborbital flight. Will you be next?
Image: Blue Origin/Anadolu Agency/picture alliance
