Photo: Singer Katy Perry. NOTE: This was not the suit Ms. Perry wore during her trip into space on Monday.
I can hardly wait to hear the song that pop singer Katy Perry has promised to write about her flight into space earlier this week.
She made the trip on April 14 with five other females. The star-studded crew flew on Blue Origin’s New Shepard launch vehicle, which since 2021 has ferried dozens of scientists and celebrities above the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary of space about 62 miles above Earth’s surface. The ship is named after Alan Shepard, the first American in space. When astronaut Shepard made his flight in the tiny Mercury capsule in 1963, no one knew if he would return alive. But space travel has come a long ways in the past 60 years. The New Shepard is “environmentally controlled for comfort” and fits six people — celebrity tourists, in this case — each with their own window seat.
I would personally hate to book a flight into space and not have a window seat.
It was the first all-female spaceflight since 1963, when Soviet-era cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova — the first woman in space — orbited the Earth 48 times during a solo flight. Ms. Tereshkova was not celebrity prior to her history-making three-day flight, but she was afterwards.
Blue Origin’s flight was shorter, lasting 10 minutes and 21 seconds. It did not orbit the earth. But it included six ladies — count ’em, six —including Ms. Perry plus Kerianne Flynn, Lauren Sanchez, Aisha Bowe, Gayle King and Amanda Nguyen.
From an upbeat NPR article by Rachel Treisman:
The crew spent several minutes in zero gravity and total amazement, as captured by audio on the livestream. They could be heard marveling at the moon and, later, screaming excitedly when the parachutes opened on the way down.
Ms. Perry spoke after the flight. “It’s about making space for future women, and taking up space and belonging, and it’s about this wonderful world that we see right out there and appreciating it. This is all for the benefit of Earth.” Presumably, her new song will reflect those sentiments, about taking up space and belonging. And maybe it will also include some excited screaming.
Earlier this month, Ms. Perry told Elle magazine that her tailor-made space playlist — with the clever title “the Space Sistas” — includes Nicki Minaj’s “Starships,” “Starman” by David Bowie, “Around the World” by Daft Punk, and her own “E.T.” During the flight, she entertained her crew mates — and the hundreds of thousands watching the flight on live-stream — by singing excerpts from Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” while the capsule floated in space.
I see skies of blue, clouds of white
Bright blessed day, dark sacred night
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world…
— ‘What a Wonderful World’ by Bob Thiele and George David Weiss, made famous by Louis Armstrong
I believe Ms. Perry is the first to sing a Louis Armstrong song during a Blue Origin flight.
Sadly, I missed this event and only heard about it after it was all over.
According to journalist Daniel Matthews, writing for the Daily Mail, Ms. Perry took a daisy into space, in honor of her daughter, who is named Daisy, and reportedly said she felt ‘super connected to life’ and ‘so connected to love’. When asked if she would write a song about her experience, she said “100%.”
Either of those phrases would serve as a great song title. But ‘So Connected to Love’ might be the best choice. (‘What a Wonderful World’ is already taken.)
By my count, Blue Origin has now flown 58 people into “space” (above the Kármán line) and some of them have been women. But mostly, they’ve been men. So having the entire crew identify as female makes this flight somewhat special.
The male passengers have generally avoided singing during the flights. Mostly, they’ve talked about the stock market . So this has been a nice change of pace.
Reportedly, none of the ladies on the April 14 trip were piloting the spaceship, which was fully autonomous. Wise choice. It would be totally unnerving to have the pilot of a spaceship screaming excitedly.