NBC’s Nightly News relegated the news at the end of its 30-minute program, like any other showbiz report. The Wall Street Journal gave to the six-celebrity crew who participated in the Blue Origin “space mission” a front-page photo.
Yahoo News wrote that “Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket took the six women just past the Kármán line — 62 miles [100 km] above Earth, which some international aviation and aerospace experts consider the threshold of space — allowing the women to experience a few minutes of weightlessness before touching back down in West Texas, where they were celebrated as newly-anointed ‘astronauts.’”
The crew included aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe, activist Amanda Nguyen, TV journalist Gayle King, singer Katy Perry, film producer Kerianne Flynn, and Lauren Sánchez, a TV host turned philanthropist and Jeff Bezos’s fiancée.
It was the 11th human spaceflight for Blue Origin, the aerospace company launched by Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos in 2000. Not disclosed was the cost of the fully automated 10-minute flight and who paid what. The rocket blasted from West Texas, where it also landed and the capsule opened its door with the “astronauts” reporting that Katy Perry sang What a Wonderful World in space.
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