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The Future of Space Travel Includes Katy Perry, Gayle King, and a Whole Lot of Firsts

This week, Jeff Bezos's rocket company Blue Origin launched an all-female crew into space, led by his fiancée Lauren Sanchez.

Yes, that Lauren Sanchez. Former TV journalist, helicopter pilot, and now the latest to join a very exclusive group of space travelers. She brought along singer Katy Perry, CBS host Gayle King, ex NASA engineer Aisha Bowe, producer Kerianne Flynn, and scientist and activist Amanda Nguyen.

It was a quick trip, just about 10 minutes from launch to landing. But it marked a major milestone for space tourism and for representation in a field still dominated by men in jumpsuits.

The crew lifted off from a launchpad in West Texas aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket. The rocket climbed more than 100 kilometers above the Earth’s surface, high enough to reach the edge of space and allow for a few brief, weightless minutes before returning to Earth.

While it may sound like a luxury joyride for the rich and well connected, Sanchez said she was deliberate in choosing an all-women crew. She wanted the flight to make a statement. Each woman on board had a background that made them uniquely inspiring, whether it was through science, media, or advocacy.

Katy Perry said the flight was about much more than headlines. She called it an important moment for commercial space travel, for women, and for humanity. Gayle King said she sang a few lines of What a Wonderful World while they were buckling in for reentry. And when they finally touched down, both Perry and King kneeled and kissed the ground.

This flight was a first for Blue Origin. It marked the first time every seat on a U.S. spaceflight was filled by women. That is saying something, considering the only other all-female flight in the history of space travel was in 1963, when Valentina Tereshkova went to space alone on a Soviet mission.

Even now, women account for less than 15 percent of the people who have ever been to space. Sanchez made sure this crew wasn’t just along for the ride. She commissioned custom flight suits and emphasized that they were doing this to open the door for others, not just to check a box.

Blue Origin has flown 11 human missions so far. While prices for these seats are kept private, the company has made it clear it wants to help normalize space access, at least for those who can afford it or are connected enough to get invited. Bezos himself flew on the company’s first mission back in 2021.

Since then, Blue Origin has hosted a long list of notable passengers. William Shatner made headlines at 90 years old. TV host Michael Strahan went up next. Laura Shepard Churchley, the daughter of Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard, flew too. Aviation pioneers Wally Funk and Ed Dwight, who were denied earlier space opportunities, also finally made the journey.

Most Blue Origin passengers have come from three groups: scientists and entrepreneurs, media figures, and wealthy civilians. But this latest launch added something different. It was personal. It was symbolic. It was deliberate.

What used to be reserved for highly trained astronauts is starting to open up. Slowly, the concept of space travel is shifting from science fiction to something a bit more tangible, at least for a select group.

Blue Origin has not disclosed how much anyone paid for this most recent flight, or whether any of them paid at all. But what is clear is that Lauren Sanchez and her team made history. They floated together in the silence of space, looked out at the moon, laughed, sang, and returned with their feet on solid ground and a story that no one else can quite tell the same way.

It was fast. It was bold. And it meant something.

Space travel might not be accessible to the rest of us just yet. But moments like this show us that the gates are starting to move. And who gets to walk through them next is no longer limited to one kind of person. That alone is worth paying attention to.

Toonie Facts

Liberal Staffers plant buttons, brag about it afterwards in a bar, not realizing they were talking to a journalist 🤣

The Penny List

A quirky, surprising, or insightful Canadian economic or business stat.

• $SPX ( ▲ 0.13% ) | $NASDAQ ( 0.0% ) | $DOW ( ▲ 2.48% ) 

• $NVDA ( ▼ 2.87% ) says it will manufacture chips in the US

• In March 2025, Canadian home sales had their weakest performance for that month since 2009