She was an “E.T.” for just a few minutes, but now Katy Perry has returned to Earth.
Katy and the rest of the all-female crew on the New Shepard mission launched by Jeff Bezos‘ Blue Origin company took off at 9:30am ET and landed Monday morning in the Texas desert. It was the first all-female mission to space since 1963, when Valentina Tereshkova of the former Soviet Union became the first woman in space.
In addition to Katy, the flight include CBS’ Gayle King, Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sanchez, ex-NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, research scientist Amanda Nguyen and movie producer Kerianne Flynn. The brief flight, which took about 15 minutes, allowed the women to experience four minutes of weightlessness. All six women can now officially be referred to as “astronauts.”
Katy’s daughter Daisy was seen on camera watching intently, saying, “Mama!”
A small recovery team, including Bezos, drove out to the capsule’s landing spot to extricate the women, followed by small buses holding the women’s friends and family. Bezos was the one who opened the hatch, and Sanchez was the first to emerge, hugging her fiancé.
Katy was next, and emerged holding a daisy, in honor of her daughter. She then literally bent down and kissed the ground. When King emerged, she bowed and touched her forehead to the ground, saying, “Thank you Jesus.”
Gayle also revealed that after the Zero G part of the flight was over, Katy finally sang something: a bit of Louis Armstrong‘s song “What a Wonderful World.”
It was Blue Origin’s 31st mission to space overall.
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