The Blue Origin company of Jeff Bezos launched the space of female celebrities that included Katy Perry, Gayle King and Lauren Sanchez, the promising of Bezos on Monday.
It was the last wave in space tourism, where richer and more famous than ever – or fortunate and well connected – can enter the zero gravity kingdom traditionally dominated by professional astronauts.
The New Shepard rocket took off on the rapid round trip from western Texas. It took them about 105 kilometers (65 miles), offering beautiful minutes of ungravation.
Sanchez, a helicopter pilot and television experimentist, invited the others for the 10 -minute flight, completely automated, adding to be able to star with the singer and composer Perry and the co -presenter of “CBS Mornings” King.
Kerianne Flynn film producer also shared the trip; Aisha Bowe, a NASA exingeneum that founded its own companies to promote scientific education; and Amanda Nguyen, a scientist who studied planets around other stars and now advocates survivors of sexual violence.
Blue Origin refused to say how much the flight cost or who paid what. The trip occurred two months before Sanchez and Bezos married in Venice.
It was 11th human space flight for the company based in the state of Washington, founded by Bezos in 2000 after making a fortune with Amazon. Bezos fasted his belt for the first Blue Origin space tourist flight in 2021 and accompanied the last crew to the platform.
The launch of celebrities was the first space flight in the country where women occupied each seat. The only other completely feminine crew in 64 years of human spatial flights was in 1963. It was then that the Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was launched alone, becoming the first woman in space. Tereshkova spent three days out of the planet.
Even after the last launch, women represent only 15% of the more than 700 people who have traveled to space. Sanchez explained that he deliberately chose women to launch with her, each of them anxious to inspire both young and old to dream big, and even commissioned special flight costumes.
“It is an important moment for the future of commercial spaces and for humanity in general and for women around the world,” Perry told The Associated Press last week.
The launch attracted Vips west Texas, including Oprah Winfrey and several women who have previously flown on private flights. Winfrey, a close friend of King, dried her tears when the capsule reached space and heard passengers marveling at the moon and screaming for joy.
This was not the first launch of Blue Origin with prominent names.
The actor of “Star Trek” William Shatner traveled to the space with Blue Origin in 2021 at age 90, shortly after the inaugural trip of Bezos. They were followed by the former defensive wing of the New York Giants and television presenter Michael Strahan and Laura Shepard Churchley, the eldest daughter of Mercury Alan Shepard’s astronaut, for whom the rocket is named. Two pioneers of aviation who lost space when they were younger -wally Funk and Ed Dwight- also traveled to 82 and 90 years, respectively.
Most Blue Origin passengers -58 counting the last launch – have been types of businesses or science, television presenters or youtubers. Ticket prices are not disclosed.
The Russian space agency has also launched its part of space tourists, starting with a Financiero de California in 2001. Two decades later, a Russian actress filmed aboard the International Space Station.
Elon Musk Spacex also sells several days trips to private customers. The first Spacex client in flying, the multimillionaire technology businessman Jared Isaacman, has already made the trip twice and made the first private space walk. He is now ready to become the next NASA administrator if confirmed by the Senate.
The Bitcoin investor born in China Chun Wang has just returned from the first space flight that carried people on the North and South Poles. Wang paid the entire Spacex account for him and three polar explorers for an unleashed sum.
“In this exciting new era of commercial spatial flights, the dream of becoming astronaut is no longer limited to a few selects,” Wang said last week through X.
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