“Life takes off on the other side of fear,” Emmy-winning journalist and pilot Lauren Sánchez told Elle magazine in an interview. This sentiment embodies the verve behind Blue Origin’s latest NS-31 mission, a program set to upend the story around women in space. On April 14, Jeff Bezos’s private space company will send its first all-female crew to space, on the New Shepard rocket, which will be a milestone not seen since Valentina Tereshkova flew solo in 1963.
The six-member crew is as diverse in expertise as it is in backgrounds, including pop icon Katy Perry, CBS host Gayle King, NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, bioastronautics researcher Amanda Nguyễn, and filmmaker Kerianne Flynn alongside Sánchez herself. The mission will last only 11 minutes, but the implications for female representation in STEM and space exploration are monumental. During the flight, the women will pass the Kármán line the internationally accepted boundary of space and experience weightlessness, viewing Earth from an altitude few will ever see.
For Perry, this flight is the realization of a decades-long dream. “I have wanted to go to space for almost 20 years,” she told Elle. An advocate for philanthropy and global change, Perry inspires her daughter, and others, to “reach for the stars, literally and figuratively.” she says. King, however, comes to the mission with equal parts trepidation and excitement. “I can honestly say it has never been a dream of mine,” she said, but she sees the chance as an opportunity to get out of her comfort zone and embark on new adventures.
Each crew member has their own story and mission for the flight. Bowe, a former aerospace engineer for NASA and now CEO of STEMBoard, is doing her part to inspire young people specifically, girls to pursue STEM careers. “I read a stat that there’s a huge majority of middle school girls who decide not to pursue STEM fields, although they otherwise would have been interested, because they see them as male-dominated fields,” she said. Bowe’s flight means a lot personally, but also culturally, as the first person of Bahamian heritage to fly into space.
Nguyễn, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and activist for survivors of sexual violence, considers her flight a metaphor for resilience and reconciliation. “My parents are boat refugees from Vietnam. We came on boats, and now we’re on spaceships,” she said, noting the historic nature of her role as the first Vietnamese and Southeast Asian woman astronaut. Her work in bioastronautics and advocacy for survivors of sexual abuse emphasize the multi dimensional contribution to her participation.
Blue Origin released a mission patch that incorporates the crew’s individual contributions and aspirations. The mic for King is a shooting star, emphasizing the impact storytelling can have on pop culture, while a firework for Perry does the same; a film reel for Flynn underlines her commitment to creating scripted narratives that motivate change. Flynn, who developed a love for exploration as a child watching the night sky with her grandfather, hopes that the flight will challenge ideas about who can or cannot become an astronaut. “Moms don’t go to space,” she remembered hearing as a child. “Guess what? Moms go to space,” Sánchez joked in reply.
Sánchez, who organized the mission, said its significance was larger. “All of these women are storytellers in their own right,” she said. “They’re going to go up to space and be able to spread what they felt in different ways.” The crew’s range in race, profession and personal journeys also provides a compelling contrast to the historical underrepresentation of women in space. So far, women have only made up around 11% of all astronauts, with significantly lower numbers in the case of women of color.
This mission is also a beautiful reminder of the pioneering spirit of Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, who flew Vostok 6. Tereshkova orbited Earth 48 times during her solo mission, spending nearly three days in space a record that would go unbroken for decades by any female astronaut. Her journey was more than a scientific achievement; it was a political protest during the Cold War, a sign of the Soviet Union’s belief in gender equity in the race to space.
In this mission, the NS-31 aims to continue this legacy and inspire a new generation of exploration. As Sánchez said, “Little girls and little boys are going to be more curious about space and what else is out there because we’re bringing attention to it.” For Bowe, the flight is emblematic of the future of space exploration. “You’re going to see six people who are going to come back and be forever changed,” she said.
Although the voyage is short, its significance will travel further than the 11 minutes in space it would take. Whether it’s Perry’s advocacy for underserved communities, Nguyễn’s work in science as a tool for peace or King’s newfound embrace of adventure, each of the crew members is in a unique position to use their experiences to inspire change on the ground. As Sánchez rightly said, “Space is going to finally be glam. Let me tell you something. If I could take glam up with me, I would do that. We are going to put the “ass” in astronaut.”
The NS-31 mission is more than a celebration of women’s achievements in space, it’s a rallying cry for inclusivity and representation in exploration. As Tereshkova once declared, “Human spaceflight cannot develop any further without the active participation of women.” This truth was reaffirmed on Blue Origin’s historic flight, demonstrating that the final frontier is not only for the few it is for all.
For more on the mission and what it signifies, check out Blue Origin’s official announcement and read Elle’s exclusive interview with the crew. To learn more about the legacy of Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, visit Space.com’s biography.
