Katy Perry tours space with all-female crew

WASHINGTON — US pop star Katy Perry and five other women launched into space on a Blue Origin rocket and successfully returned to Earth on Monday, marking the first all-female spaceflight in more than 60 years.

The crew lifted off from West Texas at 9:31 am and traveled to the edge of space, where they experienced a brief period of weightlessness before returning to Earth in a flight lasting around 11 minutes, according to a live broadcast by Blue Origin, the space company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos.

The spaceflight was a high-profile success for Bezos' New Shepard launch vehicle, which has been developed for space tourism.

The six-person crew also included Bezos' fiancee Lauren Sanchez, CBS host Gayle King, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, scientist Amanda Nguyen and film producer Kerianne Flynn.

It was the first all-female spaceflight since Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova — the first woman in space — orbited Earth during a nearly three-day solo flight in 1963.

Blue Origin does not disclose the average cost of a seat on one of its rockets. On its website, the company says potential passengers have to pay $150,000 in the form of a refundable deposit to start the "order process". In 2021, the company revealed the highest bid for a seat on its New Shepard spacecraft was $28 million.

Loizos Heracleous, a professor of strategy and organization at Warwick Business School in Britain, estimates each launch of the New Shepard costs between $1 and $3 million.

"It will take a long long time before space tourism can be a financially sustainable business available to the public at large," Heracleous said.

Agencies Via Xinhua