Singer Katy Perry is counting the minutes til she blasts off into space.
Monday, April 14, Perry will be aboard the Blue Origin rocket ship “New Shepherd-31,” alongside an an all-female crew that includes talk show host Gayle King, and Blue Origin owner Jeff Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sánchez. Former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen and film producer Kerianne Flynn round out the six woman crew.
But if you think you have to be a pop star or a talk show host to climb aboard a rocketship, think again!
Blue Origin’s New Shepherd is taking reservations for future flights and promising passengers their very own window seat.
What’s In Store for the NS-31 Crew Monday
According to the Blue Origin website, the New Shepherd flies itself. Which means all six women will be flying purely as passengers when the rocket lifts off some time after the launch window opens Monday morning at 8:30a.m. CT/9:30a.m. ET.
The rocket will travel at more than three times the speed of sound, passing the Kármán line, which is the internationally recognized boundary of space 62 miles above the earth. Once they reach space, the six women will achieve weightlessness and can unbuckle and float around the rocket, looking out windows at the earth below.
They’ll have about four minutes to take it all in before coming back down to earth under parachutes.
Past passengers aboard the New Shepherd have described it as “eye-opening” and “enlightening,” with Karsen Kitchen of the NS-26 flight last year saying she’s “forever changed” by the experience.
Katy Perry & Crewmates Aren’t First Celebrities to Fly to Space
Katy Perry, Gayle King and Lauren Sánchez are far from the first celebrities to fly to space in a Blue Origin rocket. Star Trek legend William Shatner became the oldest person to go to space at age 90 when he was a passenger on New Shepherd-18 in October 2021. Writing about it for Variety, Shatner said, “I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound.”
“Good Morning America” host Michael Strahan also breached the Kármán line in 2021, calling it “unreal” and better than he expected.
You Don’t Have to Be a Celebrity to Fly to Space with Blue Origin
Blue Origin advertises the chance for anyone to book a seat on the New Shepherd on its website, with the slogan “join a new generation of astronauts” and a button underneath to “purchase your seat.”
Clicking that button takes you to a form to fill out with name, address and even a section titled “Tell Us About You.”
At the very bottom of that form with a box to check when you apply, it says, “I acknowledge Blue Origin will collect a $150,000 USD fully refundable deposit to begin the order process.” Note the word “deposit.” Blue Origin doesn’t publicly state the price of a ticket aboard New Shepherd, negotiating privately with each passenger, according to The New York Times.