The women of Blue Origin are standing up for his or her historic area flight.
Hours earlier than takeoff on Monday morning, the all-female crew of Blue Origin’s New Shepard 31 — together with Katy Perry, Gayle King and Lauren Sanchez — sat down with “CBS Mornings” and addressed the criticism of their area journey.
“There’s always positive and negative, always,” mentioned Sanchez, 55, who’s engaged to Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos.
“And Blue Origin’s mission is for the benefit of Earth,” she famous. “You should go walk around and ask anyone who works here how they feel about this mission. I think you’ll get choked up.”
“And so to me, I think it’s just a little misunderstood,” Sanchez continued. “Especially for all of the people that make this flight possible, to make it safe.”
King, 70, equally defended the area flight and mentioned it was serving to, not hurting, the planet.
“Many people think that if you’re devoting resources you’re taking away things from Earth. It isn’t an either or. It’s a both and,” she defined. “And what happens in space also benefits what’s happening on Earth.”
“Listen, this wasn’t my dream growing up,” the “CBS Mornings” anchor admitted. “But if it was my dream I wouldn’t be able to see anybody that looked like me. Either, certainly a person of color or a female. That would not have been possible.”
King added, “So now that we are the first female crew, I know we are not going to be the last. And I just think it opens doors to innovation and imagination.”
Sanchez, King and Perry, 40, have been joined by former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen and movie producer Kerianne Flynn for Monday’s flight.
The group wore matching blue area fits onboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard 31, which launched at 9:30 a.m. from the corporate’s West Texas base.
The journey lasted round 11 minutes, and it was the primary all-female area journey since Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova‘s solo flight in 1963.
Each King and Perry kissed the bottom once they returned to Earth.
King’s BFF Oprah Winfrey was on the scene and cried throughout takeoff. Perry’s fiancé Orlando Bloom and their daughter Daisy Dove, 4, have been additionally there. Bezos, 61, was the primary individual to greet the ladies after they landed.
Perry, who sang “What a Wonderful World” in area, instructed a reporter she felt “super connected to love” after the flight.
“This is all for the benefit of Earth,” the singer added. “I wanted to model courage and worthiness and fearlessness.”
King instructed CBS earlier than the launch that she was “nervous but also very excited.”
After touchdown, the journalist described the journey as “a bona fide freakin’ flight.”
“I am so proud of me right now,” King added.
