To the Stars

Katy Perry Returns From Space

Photo by Joella Marano / CC BY-SA 2.0

Pop star Katy Perry was a part of the all-female crew that took a trip to space on April 14. The six women returned to Earth after a brief 11-minute flight. Also aboard Jeff Bezo’s Blue Origin Rocket was Bezo’s fiancée Lauren Sánchez, CBS co-host Gayle King, civil rights advocate Aanda Nguyen, film producer Kerianne Flynn and NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe.

The rocket took off from West Texas at 9:31 a.m. and quickly returned to Earth after a safe flight with a parachute-assisted landing. The craft was fully independent, with no pilots or manual operation required by the crew. This was the first all-female spaceflight since Soviet Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova traveled to space on a solo mission in 1963.

The trip has received criticism for its inappropriate promotion of the space tourism industry–short commercial flights with an emphasis on tourism rather than space science and research.

“These flights are significant and exciting, but I think maybe they can also be a source of frustration for space scientists,” special advisor for political affairs at the European Space Agency Kai-Uwe Schrogl said. “Celebrities do it for amusement but get a lot more attention than the regular astronauts.”