1 week Ago
Jeff Bezos is blasting his bride-to-be Lauren Sánchez and her "guests" to space on Monday – a plan that might, under other circumstances, contain mixed messages. A crew of six women – Amanda Nguyen, a civil rights activist who will become the first Vietnamese woman to fly to space; the CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King; the pop star Katy Perry; film producer Kerianne Flynn; entrepreneur and former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe; and Sánchez, a journalist and philanthropist – will blast off on Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket from the company's launch site, 30 miles north of Van Horn, Texas, on an 11-minute, suborbital flight to the edge of space and back. Though billed as the first all-female crew to reach the Kármán line, the internationally recognised boundary of space at an altitude of 62 miles, it is not technically so: the cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova flew a solo mission to space in 1963.
But Tereshkova didn't blast off with the accoutrements afforded the new ladies of space. "We're a crew!" they reportedly shouted in unison at a photoshoot for Elle magazine, each rocking "an all-black power look". The magazine noted that this will be the first time anyone has been to space with their hair and makeup done.
"Who would not get glam before the flight?" Sánchez remarked. Perry added: "Space is going to finally be glam. Let me tell you something.
If I could take glam up with me, I would do that. We are going to put the 'ass' in astronaut." But trips like these raise questions: are they anything more than joy rides – and do they need to be? King said she "had a lot of trepidation – I still do – but I also know it's very interesting to be terrified and excited at the same time.
I haven't felt like...
Edward Helmore , Robin McKie.
