Amazon founder Jeff Bezos successfully blasted his fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, and an all-female crew to the edge of space before they made a tearful return following the 11-minute flight.
The billionaire’s Blue Origin space rocket lifted off from its launchpad in West Texas on Monday morning, with the likes of Oprah Winfrey and a gaggle of Kardashians watching on site as it surged toward the boundary of space—known as the Karman Line.
CBS News journalist Gayle King, rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyễn, and film producer Kerianne Flynn were also on board the New Shepard capsule, which stuck its landing minutes later.
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“Welcome back to Earth,” mission controllers said over the communications loop as the crew parachuted back down to terra firma. Laughing and celebrations could be heard from the inside of the capsule. The revelry made way for momentary screams as a thud, then dust, blasted out upon impact with Earth.
Bezos himself was on hand to release the crew from the capsule after it grounded. His excitement led to an embarrassing tumble, as the 61-year-old raced to greet his fiancée.
But after face-planting into the dry earth, he got up, swung open the door and shouted, “Come on out, guys!” before embracing Sanchez with a hug and a kiss.
“Where are my babies?” she said after exiting the shuttle, clutching a soft toy. “There, over there, go see ‘em,” Bezos responded.
Pop star Katy Perry leapt out of the dome-shaped capsule next, and kissed the ground after experiencing weightlessness. She then hugged and thanked the brains of the operation, Bezos. Nguyễn, Bowe and then King exited.
King, who had been openly nervous about the journey, was spotted crying on the car journey toward the rocket this morning.
“I just need to have a moment with the ground,” King said, before leaning into the sand upon returning. “Thank you, Jesus!” she exclaimed, with the Amazon founder laughing.
Flynn followed, exclaiming at the door of the capsule: “I went to space!”
This point will be hotly debated by critics who say that the Karaman line, at an altitude of 62 miles high, is not space. The crew, however, actually briefly passed the point—that is widely accepted as the edge of space.
Interviewed moments after touching down, Sanchez said she was “so proud” of her fellow crew members. “We were just talking in the capsule, Gayle doesn’t even have ear piercings, she’s so afraid,” she said.
“She got in that capsule and it profoundly changed her. For me, I can’t put it into words but I looked out the window and we got to see the moon, it wasn’t pink but it was almost full,” the former local TV news anchor said.
“Earth looked so...” she added, struggling for words. “It was quiet, so quiet. And really alive. You look at it and you’re like... we’re all in this together.”
After that profound statement, she added: “We’re more connected than you realize.”
Sanchez broke into tears after saying: “It makes me want to come back and hug everyone and be like, ‘We’re in this together!‘”
“I don’t cry that often!” she said. “So I didn’t expect to be this emotional.”
Her tears, she said, were due to “all the love that was in that capsule.” Perry similarly said that the flight made her feel “super connected to love.”
“Seeing Jeff before I left was like,” Sanchez said exhaling heavily. “I had to come back, I mean, we’re getting married!”
She joked that Bezos didn’t want to marry her, so he sent her to space.
The bizarre spectacle kicked off with Kardashian family matriarch, Kris Jenner, and Khloe Kardashian popping up at the launch site. “We’re here to support our girlfriend and our friends, and I never thought that we’d be talking to you from a space launch for sure,” Jenner said.
On the Blue Origin webcast Oprah also appeared, telling viewers that her friend, CBS News host Gayle King, was nervous for the mission. “Anytime we’re on a flight, she’s in anybody’s lap if there’s a slightest bit of turbulence, (with) real anxiety flying—and this is overcoming a wall of fear, a barrier,” she said.
King herself had alluded to her fears in the days leading up to the mission. And despite her warm embrace of Bezos when the rocket touched down earlier today, she even shared her reservations about the billionaire.
During an interview with CBS Mornings colleague Vlad Duthiers last week, she alluded to concerns that the all-female flight was a PR stunt for the Amazon founder’s space flight company.
“Listen, it is troubling for me too,” she said. “There have been some questions and some decisions that he has made that I’ve actually gone, ‘Huh?’ But I think in this particular case, I think this is so much bigger than one man and one company.’
“I’ve chosen to separate the two. It’s not a zero-sum game. You can do this on the one hand, and this on the other hand. And both things can be true.”
Perry, meanwhile, had some interesting preflight thoughts. The pop star, who sang Louis Armstrong song “What a Wonderful World” mid-flight, said Sunday on Instagram that there was a strange coincidence at play.
“When I was invited to come on this voyage, I looked up the capsule. On the very front of it is the outline in the shape of a feather and when I saw that it was like a total confirmation because my mom has always called me feather,” she said.
“The capsule’s name is Tortoise. A wave, just the most energetic wave, just shot through my body. And I was like, ‘What? This capsule’s name is Tortoise?‘”
Perry confirmed: “My mom calls me two nicknames, Feather and Tortoise. What are the chances that I’m going to space on a rocket in a capsule with my symbol, the feather, called Tortoise?
“There are no coincidences, and I’m just so grateful for these confirmations and so grateful that I feel like something bigger than me is steering the ship.”
