Jeff Bezos Will Shoot Katy Perry, Gayle King, and Lauren Sanchez Into Space

Jeff Bezos is best known as Amazon’s kingpin, but he also owns an aerospace company (sound familiar?) that will send a new crew of high-profile women on a mission later this year. As announced on Feb. 27, pop star Katy Perry, CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King,and Besoz’s fiancée Lauren Sánchez are among six women who will board the company’s New Shepard spacecraft, which has completed ten other human flights previously. There have been a total of 30 New Shepard missions. 

The crew will also include aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe, scientist and activist Amanda Nguyen, and filmmaker Kerianne Flynn, who produced the documentary This Changes Everything about the history of women in Hollywood. Blue Origin reports that this is the first all-female flight crew since Valentina Tereshkova’s solo spaceflight in 1963.

Blue Origin states that Sánchez pulled the mission together as an Emmy Award-winning journalist, New York Times bestselling author, pilot, and Vice Chair of the Bezos Earth Fund. “She is honored to lead a team of explorers on a mission that will challenge their perspectives of Earth, empower them to share their own stories, and create lasting impact that will inspire generations to come,” they wrote on their site. 

According to Variety, King announced her participation on Feb. 27’s CBS Mornings, revealing that she consulted her friend Oprah Winfrey before deciding to move forward. “I don’t know how to explain being terrified and excited at the same time,” said King. “It’s like how I felt about to deliver a baby.”