[Image: FMT]
An all-female crew, including singer Katy Perry, journalist Gayle King, and Jeff Bezos’ fiance Lauren Sanchez, will be the next group to fly into space on Blue Origin’s rocket.
Joining them for the flight on the phallic flying machine will be bioastronautics research scientist Amanda Nguyen, former NASA rocket scientist and CEO of STEMBoard, and Kerianne Flynn, a film producer.
Blue Origin announced the flight on Wednesday, saying that it was “brought together” by Sanchez, who is also vice chair of the Bezos Earth Fund.
According to a statement from Blue Origin, Sanchez “is honored to lead a team of explorers on a mission that will challenge their perspectives of Earth, empower them to share their own stories, and create lasting impact that will inspire generations to come.”
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The mission, known as NS-31, will be New Shepard’s 11th flight carrying people past the Kármán line – an area 100 kilometers above Earth’s surface that is widely recognised as the altitude at which outer space begins.
No date has yet been set for the launch, which will be the first all-female flight crew since Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova’s solo spaceflight in 1963.
The number of women who have been to space has increased as space tourism has grown. In November, Emily Calandrelli, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineer and TV host known as “Space Gal,” became the 100th woman to venture into space aboard Blue Origin’s NS-28 mission.
Ignoring the ’empowering women’ narrative for now, the internet was quick to get all judgy over the ‘billionaire crew’.
“At least half of this so-called “crew” hasn’t earned the privilege of going to space. If money is your only ticket, you should stay on the ground until you prove your ambitions go beyond pure capitalism.”
“Being a celebrity should not qualify for you as a professional astronaut. End of story.”
Haters gonna hate. Just let the ladies enjoy their trip to ‘space’.
[Source: CNN]
