For the first time since Russian astronaut Valentina Tereshkova went into space solo in 1963, setting the record as the first woman to ever exit the atmosphere, an all-female team will be entering outer space. The flight, featuring a team of six women, will be operated by Blue Origin, a company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The flight will be in the air for only 11 minutes, crossing the Kármán line and allowing the sensation of anti-gravity for approximately four minutes, before returning to Earth. The Kármán line is the internationally recognized boundary that separates the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere from outer space, meaning they will be about 100 km above sea-level.
Although the aircraft is automatically operated, the crew is comprised of a wide assortment of successful women, like singer-songwriter Katy Perry, producer Kerianne Flynn, civil rights activist and scientist Amanda Nguyen, aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe, journalist and TV -personality Gayle King, and Lauren Sanchez the former news anchor, helicopter pilot and fiancé of Bezos. Perry, a pop-singer best known for her hit songs from the 2010s like “Firework” and “Roar” may seem like an unlikely candidate for this journey, but Perry herself is not at all surprised by her decision to exit the atmosphere. “If you had told me I’d be part of the first all-female crew in space, I would have believed you. Nothing was beyond my imagination as a child,” she stated, as reported by the BBC.
Perry has come under fire recently with the release of her new album 143 which featured the lead single “Woman’s World.” The single itself was immediately discussed online as pandering to the male gaze and featuring the sexualization of feminist tropes, and peaked at No. 63 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. According to Perry, the song and subsequent music video were meant to be perceived satirically, but may have fallen flat. “We’re having fun, being sarcastic with it, it’s very slapstick and very on the nose […]it’s like a reset for me and for my idea of feminine divine, ” Perry stated in a Variety article. Yet, the largest controversy from the creation of the album stemmed from her collaboration with Lukasz Gottwald, better known under the stage name Dr. Luke. This producer faced sexual misconduct allegations from singer Kesha in 2014, and although they reached a legal settlement in 2023, numerous other stars have spoken out against his alleged inappropriate behaviour, such as performers P!nk and Kelly Clarkson.
Controversy surrounding those selected aside, an all-female space voyage is an important milestone to surpass, as just 60 years earlier, the idea of going to space without a man was shot down by the United States congress, and thought to be inconceivable. Despite research and trials suggesting that women were just as physically and mentally capable of their male counterparts of going to space, former astronaut John Glenn was one of the men who rallied against it, suggesting that it went against the natural order of society for women to perform a man’s job. “I think this gets back to the way our social order is organized, really. It is just a fact. The men go off and fight the wars and fly the airplanes and come back and help design and build and test them. The fact that women are not in this field is a fact of our social order.”
Statements like John Glenn’s highlight why representation matters. As NASA aims to place the first woman on the moon by 2026, it is more important than ever to show girls and women that they are capable and deserving of making history. Although the team assembled for the voyage may seem unconventional, they act as existence proof for what was once considered impossible. The space-shuttle will launch this spring from Blue Origin’s launch site in West Texas.
