Katy Perry, Gayle King to join list of celebrities who have visited space

Lauren Sánchezwill be part of the Blue Origin all-female flight to space. Sánchez, who led the organization of the historic mission, told Elle magazine she chose each of the women because of how inspiring they are."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."

Sánchez also told Elle that Bezos "was telling Katy and myself: 'It's going to change you more than you know.'" The Amazon founder is speaking from experience, as he went to space July 20, 2021, on the first crewed flight of Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket.

Gayle King, a journalist and television personality best known as a co-host of "CBS Mornings," is also headed up to space."If you feel queasy, don't throw up because it will float in the air and get in everybody's hair, and that's nasty," astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson warned King ahead of her space journey.

"I've since talked to so many people who've been up (to space)," King said in an interview with Elle magazine. "So I had a lot of trepidation — I still do — but I also know it’s very interesting to be terrified and excited at the same time."She continued: "I haven’t felt like this since childbirth, really. Because I knew childbirth was going to hurt. But it’s also stepping out of your comfort zone."

Pop star Katy Perry seemed to float in space during the 2013 MTV Europe Music Awards and now, she's making that reality.

"I don’t have any time to be nervous; I ain’t got time to be worried,” the "American Idol" said in an interview with Elle magazine. "I’m going to feel something when they go, ‘10, 9, 8, 7,…’ but until then we’ve got stuff to do. We’ve got business to handle."

Next up on the roster is Amanda Nguyen. She's a prominent civil rights activist and bioastronautics research scientist who worked on the last NASA space shuttle mission, STS-135, and the U.S. space agency's exoplanet-hunting Kepler space telescope.

"I thought, 'About time.' It’s a dream come true, and for me it was a dream deferred," Nguyen told Elle magazine about her initial reaction to joining the Blue Origin space mission." "I worked at NASA, I studied the stars —astrophysics at Harvard and MIT — but life got in the way. Gender-based violence is a big reason why so many women in STEM don’t continue on with their training, and I was one of those women. After I was sexually assaulted, I traded my telescope to fight for my rights as a sexual assault survivor."

Kerianne Flynn, a film producer known for her contributions to "This Changes Everything," a 2018 documentary about sexism in Hollywood, is also joining the rest of the ladies in space on April 14, 2025.

About her excitement of visiting space for the first time, Flynn said in an interview she's "been waiting to do this for a long time." The film producer, who grew up in a small town in Michigan, said she "always looked up at the stars with my grandfather. He would talk about celestial events and explain the astronomy of the sky. I wondered, 'What is out there, and what is up there?' But going through the rest of my life — my career, my education — it just didn’t seem like something that was attainable. So when this opportunity came along, especially to be part of a historic all-female crew, I felt honored and excited. I can’t wait to touch down on Earth and share what we bring back with the world."

Aisha Bowe is the sixth woman aboard the Blue Origin spacecraft. She's a former NASA rocket scientist, CEO of engineering firm STEMBoard and founder of LINGO, which teaches students technology skills.

"I feel like I've been training for and waiting for this moment my entire life," Bowe said about the opportunity. "I remember working at NASA as an aerospace engineer and having the opportunity to walk through the vertical assembly building with a NASA astronaut, José M. Hernández. And José applied to the Astronaut Corps about 13 times before he was selected. He’s an inspiration. I wanted to go to space, but I didn’t think it was possible. I was afraid to do it. I was afraid to even dream about it."

Now let's look back at others who have made the trek to space.In this Dec. 11, 2021, photo, crewmembers of Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket, Laura Shepard Churchley, daughter of the first American in space Alan Shepard, gets a hug from NFL hall-of-famer Michael Strahan after their flight from Launch Site One in Texas.

Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson, left, with Sirisha Bandla on his shoulders, cheers with crew members after flying into space aboard a Virgin Galactic vessel, a voyage he described as the "experience of a lifetime."

Jeff Bezos holds the aviation glasses that belonged to Amelia Earhart as he speaks during a press conference about his flight on Blue Origin's New Shepard into space on July 20, 2021, in Van Horn, Texas. Mr. Bezos said he brought the glasses with him on the flight.