It included six women: aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe; activist Amanda Nguyen; CBS Mornings host Gayle King; pop singer Katy Perry; film producer Kerianne Flynn; and Lauren Sánchez, an author, TV host turned philanthropist and Bezos’s fiancée.
The crew boarded their capsule atop the fully autonomous New Shepard rocket in Van Horn, Texas, early Monday for a suborbital flight that lasted just over 10 minutes.
The rocket took them past the Kármán line — 62 miles above Earth, which some international aviation and aerospace experts consider the threshold of space — allowing the crew to experience a few minutes of weightlessness before returning safely to Earth in a capsule that employed three parachutes as it touched down on the desert floor.
What the crew said after they landed
Upon their return, Bezos opened the capsule door and hugged Sánchez, who was in tears as she described what she saw.
"Earth looked so — it was so quiet. It was just quiet," Sánchez said.
"I will never be the same," Bowe said of her experience. "There's no boundaries, no border. There's just Earth."
Nguyen, a rape survivor, brought the hospital bracelet she wore after the assault as a “zero G” indicator — or an object intended to float in the cabin during weightlessness. She said she brought it as a reminder to "never, never give up."
Perry and King each kissed the ground after exiting the capsule.
Perry held up a daisy that she took on the flight in honor of her 4-year-old daughter Daisy.
"This experience is second to being a mom," Perry said.
The pop star sang "What a Wonderful World" on board before descending.
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