TEXAS: Six women, including popstar Katty Perry is set to blast off on April 14 on a self-driving private rocket by Blue Origin, the company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, for a joyride to space that is expected to last all of 11 minutes.
“I think I’m gonna sing, I’ve got to sing in space!” Perry said in a new post on Instagram.
Perry (40) will be joined by broadcast journalist Gayle King (70) Lauren Sanchez (55) who is also Bezos’ fiancee, Aisha Bowe (38), a former NASA rocket scientist, Amanda Nguyen (33), a bioastronautics research scientist; and Kerianne Flynn, a movie producer. It will be the 11th human flight for Blue Origin.
The mission known as NS-31 on a reusable rocket is set to lift off from Van Horn in Texas and will feature the first all-female crewed spaceflight in 60 years. The first woman to travel in space was Soviet-era cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, in a 1963 solo mission when she orbited Earth as part of the Vostok 6 mission that lasted just under three days.
In a post on her Instagram account, Perry wrote a day ago, “I’ve dreamed of going to space for 15 years and tomorrow that dream becomes a reality…..I am SO honoured to be alongside 5 other incredible and inspiring women as we become the first ever all female flight space crew!”
The singer’s video accompanying the message showed a peek from inside the capsule that will take her to space.It includes large windows from where she and her crewmates will be able to take in the views from space.
Named after astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American in space, the New Shepard vehicle is touted as Blue Origin’s “fully reusable, suborbital rocket system built for human flight from the beginning.”
The company said that the rocket will accelerate more than three times the speed of sound and will take the passengers just above the Karman line, an invisible boundary at an altitude of 62 miles that is widely accepted as the edge of space.
The crew will experience about four minutes of weightlessness then descend using parachutes and land in the Texas desert.
The rocket is autonomous and designed to fly to and from suborbital space without a pilot on board.
“We envision a future where millions of people will live and work in space with a single-minded purpose: to restore and sustain Earth, our blue origin,” states Blue Origin which states that its mission is that of “building a road to Space for the benefit of Earth.”
Jeff Bezos the founder of Blue Origin, went to space on a New Shepard flight in July 2021, the spacecraft’s first mission with a crew. Actor William Shatner, who played Captain James T Kirk of the Starship Enterprise was among the first rocket of Jeff Bezos company in the year 2022 at the age of 90.
Blue Origin is a competitor for Elon Musk-owned SpaceX, which uses its Dragon space capsule to carry crew and cargo to the International Space Station.
Sanchez worked with fashion designers to redo the look for the all-female flight crew “that brings spice to space” according to a report in Fox News.
The dark blue jumpsuit-style ensembles carry a NASA patch, a patch with their last name, and the Blue Origin logo on one arm. In an interview with The New York Times, Sanchez said “Usually, you know, these suits are made for a man. Then they get tailored to fit a woman.”
She told the NYT that she reached out to Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim, the co-founders of the brand Monse, who are also creative directors of Oscar de la Renta, to rework the look. “I think the suits are elegant, but they also bring a little spice to space,” Sanchez told the news outlet and added what Katy Perry had told her, “We’re putting the ‘a–‘ in astronaut.”
Sanchez was cited telling Elle magazine that she chose her fellow crew members because each had “proven their ability to inspire others”. She said all the women will be able to spread the word on what they felt like during the trip, and also expand on ideas of what the next generation of space explorers will look like.
Actress Olivia Munn had expressed her concerns about the mission, questioning its purpose and the vast resources being spent on it. “I’m not sure what they’re doing up there,” Munn said while guest co-hosting ‘Today With Jenna & Friends.’
“There are so many other things that are important in the world right now. It’s a lot of money to go to space, and there are people who can’t even afford basic necessities,” she said, as per E! News.
Munn questioned the motives behind the mission, asking, “What’s the point? Is it historic that you guys are going on a ride? I think it’s a bit gluttonous. Space exploration was meant to further our knowledge and help mankind. What are they going to do up there that will make a difference?” as per E! News.
However, Sanchez and Bowe have defended the mission, emphasizing the importance of representation and storytelling. “All of these women are storytellers in their own right,” Sanchez said in an interview, adding, “They’re going to go up to space and be able to spread what they felt in different ways,” as per E! News.
Bowe added, “This representation matters. It’s people seeing themselves and being able to show up authentically in their careers in the future.”
The mission of Blue Origin,it said is learning to harness materials found in space to enable future exploration including “using lunar dust to ultimately produce solar power systems, power transmission cables, and oxygen for propellants and human consumption, as well as developing systems to identify water ice on the Moon’s south pole for extraction of hydrogen to refuel landers.” (ANI)
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