All-Woman NS-31 Crew Praise Teamwork, Sisterhood

Six women flew to space today on Blue Origin’s New Shepard-31 mission, spending about 4 minutes in weightlessness looking down at the Earth from above the Kármán Line. The celebrity-filled flight included CBS journalist Gayle King who openly shared her fears before the flight, but was ecstatic afterwards. She and the others praised Blue Origin’s training and teamwork and their own sisterhood for what many of them described as a life-changing experience.

King was joined by singer Katy Perry, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos’s fiancée Láuren Sanchez, Aisha Bowe, Kerianne Flynn, and Amanda Nguyễn.

REPLAY: A New Shepard tradition pic.twitter.com/dSexRmoZl7

— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) April 14, 2025

Bowe is an aerospace engineer who spent part of her career at NASA’s Ames Research Center and is an advocate for STEM education and now is CEO of STEMBoard and founder of LINGO. Flynn produced two films about women — This Changes Everything (2018) and LILLY (2024) about Lilly Ledbetter. Nguyễn, a bioastronautics research scientist who was a NASA intern in 2011 and 2013, advocates for victims of sexual violence through her nonprofit organization Rise. A sexual violence survivor herself, she was one of TIME’s Women of the Year in 2022 and is the first Vietnamese woman to fly in space (Pham Tuân was the first Vietnamese in space on a 1980 Soviet mission).

New Shepard lifted off on time at 8:30:00 am Central Time (9:30:00 am Eastern) and the crew capsule landed 10 minutes and 21 seconds later after reaching an altitude of 346,802 ft (106 km) Above Ground Level (AGL) or 350,449 ft (107 km) Mean Sea Level (MSL). Blue Origin uses the internationally-recognized Kármán Line at 62 miles (100 km) as the imaginary dividing line between air and space. They were just above that, so the six-person crew can now call themselves astronauts.

Bezos, Blue Origin CEO David Limp, and “Crew Member 7,” Sarah Knights, who helped train the crew, joined them after touchdown (L-R): Jeff Bezos, Kerianne Flynn, Katy Perry, Láuren Sanchez, Aisha Bowe, Gayle King, Amanda Nguyễn, Sarah Knights, David Limp.

What an amazing crew! Great flight this morning. pic.twitter.com/4h5fNGpRRO

— Dave Limp (@davill) April 14, 2025

The capsule and the New Shepard rocket are reusable. The rocket, named after Alan Shepard, the first American to reach space on a suborbital flight in 1961, made a successful landing after reaching an apogee of 346,481 ft (106 km) AGL or  350,128 ft (107 km) MSL.

This was Blue Origin’s 31st New Shepard flight, the 11th with passengers, and the first spaceflight with an all-woman crew since Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova made a solo flight in 1963.  Many women have flown in space since then, but as part of crews that included men.

With a star-studded all-female crew, the flight is getting substantial media attention, but it was a personal journey for each of them. While some had dreamed of going into space since they were young, King was not one of them. She openly discussed her fears not just of going into space, but flying in airplanes, and joked that she hasn’t even had her ears pierced.

In a pre-launch interview with Blue Origin’s Tabitha Lipkin, King said she relied on the advice of her two children and her best friend, Oprah Winfrey, who all encouraged her to go. After landing and exiting the capsule, she kissed the Earth (as did Perry) and thanked the Blue Origin trainers for preparing them so well.  She said her flight instructor said she was her “best success story” because “she’s never had somebody go through the course who’s terrified of flying. … I’m so proud of me right now. I can’t believe it.”

Like others who have flown into space either on suborbital missions like this one or into orbit, King talked about how being in space offers a very different perspective about the planet.

“It was really quiet and peaceful, and you look down at the planet, you think that’s where we came from. To me, it’s such a reminder about how we need to do better, be better human beings. It’s so vitrioloic nowadays. And I mean if everyone could experience that peace and what it takes to do what we did, all the people that it took to get us up there and get us back safely, I’ll never, ever forget.” — Gayle King

She went on to say that the six of them are “forever bonded because you can’t go through what we went through to look out for each other, to help each other, and not be changed by that. … It is a true sisterhood. … I am glad I did it. I am very glad I did it. I’m very glad. I have no regrets about doing it.”

As to what she would tell others:

“I’m stepping way out of my comfort zone, because this is so not like me. I said up there — I may now get my ears pierced! I’ve always been afraid. … For people that are afraid, Eleanor Roosevelt once said ‘courage is doing something that scares you, but you do it anyway,’ and I stepped out of my comfort zone in a way that I never thought was possible for me.  And now that I’ve done it, I really do feel I can take on anything, anything, anything.” — Gayle King

The others were similarly grateful and overwhelmed, expressing deep emotion as have many of their predecessors.

Perry said the experience was second only to “being a mom.” That’s why she had found it difficult to make the decision to fly because her daughter, Daisy, is “all my love right there and I have to surrender and trust that the universe is going to take care of me and protect me and also my family, my daughter.” She was convinced it was meant to be because her mother gave her two nicknames, Feather, which is Blue Origin’s symbol, and Tortoise, which is the name of the capsule. “I asked for a sign from the heavens, from my angels” and “I got the message.”

“I feel super connected to love. So connected to love. I think this experience has shown me you never know how much love is inside of you, like how much love you have to give, and how loved you are, until the day you launch….

“This whole journey is not just about going into space. It’s the training, it’s the team, it’s the whole thing. I couldn’t recommend the experience more. … You really find the love for yourself because you’ve gotta trust in yourself on this journey and you’re feeling love when you come down, for sure, and you’re feeling that strength.” — Katy Perry

She is about to go on tour and released her set list while in space, and sang “What a Wonderful World.” Hopefully Blue Origin will release video of that. The company has posted a replay of the webcast, but it doesn’t include any in-capsule footage.