dailynewsnblog
“Space might be the final frontier, but it’s made in a Hollywood basement,” the Red Hot Chili Peppers once sang, and today—Monday, April 14—space got a major dose of Hollywood as pop star Katy Perry and TV personality Gayle King took flight via Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin space tourism company, alongside Bezos’s fiancée Lauren Sánchez, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, bioastronautics research scientist and civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, and filmmaker Kerianne Flynn. This morning, those six women took off on what I assume was the priciest flight of their lives to the Kármán line—or the boundary where Earth’s atmosphere meets outer space—and I, for one, was ready to live vicariously.
Whether you’re raring to divine feminist meaning from the flight’s all-female crew or believe space tourism represents all that’s wrong with our current society, it can’t be argued that Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket launch was a major cultural spectacle—and, unsurprisingly, I had a whole lot of thoughts about it. Find them all below.
- I am respectfully noting that the space shuttle looks exactly like a giant Hitachi Magic Wand.
- The girlies are in their Monse flight suits, and they’re ready to go!
- WHAT are they saying to each other in this little pump-up convo in the safety shelter?
- Team-prayer-breakfast energy.
- I know this can’t possibly be a big deal, or else someone would have intervened, but why do all these women have their long, luscious hair down? If there were ever a moment for a ponytail, a space flight feels like it.
- Someone is helpfully noting on air that the space flight will last approximately as long as three plays of Katy Perry’s “Firework,” so I guess you could just listen to that three times.
- Ahhhhh, the rocket fins are moving!
- “Good luck and godspeed, ladies.”
- Jeff Bezos looks extremely calm.
- Liftoff!
- That thing is outta there!
- I, personally, do not want to rocket upwards this quickly for any reason.
- What kind of snacks do we think are being served onboard?
- Oh, Oprah looks stressed, which is really not a way I ever want to see Oprah look.
- I mean, if you launched my bestie into space, I’d be a little nervous about it!
- Aw, they’re looking at the moon!
- “They are floating, they are weightless, they are experiencing zero gravity for the very first time.”
- Okay, maybe I’m a little jealous.
- Ahhhhh, sonic boom!
- And just like that, they’re back!
- Perfect landing, slay.
- OMG, the screaming!
- Kris and Khloé Kardashian look thrilled.
- “Everybody appears to be fine” is really all you want to hear upon the return of a space flight.
- I do like the way that Khloé’s bob is bobbing at the moment.
- The girls are officially back in town, and by “town” I of course mean the stratosphere.
- I need to know what reaching space actually feels like. Is it more like a carnival ride, or sleeping on a water bed?
- Bezos is opening the hatch!
- Lauren’s out!
- Oh, and Katy’s…kissing the ground and holding a daisy up to the sky (presumably for her daughter, Daisy). I love a little drama!
- Aw, Amanda’s sobbing scream is cute!
- Aisha’s arm-pump is adorable, too.
- Gayle doing a push-up of sorts to “have a moment with the ground” is sending me.
- Kerianne joyfully saying “I went to space!”…well, yes!
- Do we think Katy, Gayle, Lauren, Aisha, Amanda, and Kerianne will all remain on an active group text after this?
- Or will they just run into each other at the Vanity Fair Oscar party and say, “LOL, remember when we queened out in space”?
- I’m just going to leave this story about William Shatner experiencing “overwhelming sadness” upon visiting space right here.
