Blue Origin announced the six-person crew for its upcoming NS-31 mission last week, marking the 11th crewed flight of the New Shepard program.
The mission will feature an all-female crew that includes some of the biggest names influencing mainstream pop culture to date, including former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, bioastronautics research scientist Amanda Nguyen, CBS journalist Gayle King, pop recording artist Katy Perry, former fashion and human resources professional Kerianne Flynn, and Emmy Award-winning journalist, bestselling author Lauren Sánchez, who played a pivotal role in assembling the team.
Following the announcement last week, Sánchez expressed her excitement about leading a group of explorers on a mission that will provide a transformative perspective of Earth, empower them to share their stories, and inspire future generations.
“This mission will be the 11th human flight for the New Shepard program and the 31st in its history,” Blue Origin said in a statement. “To date, the program has flown 52 people above the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary of space.”
Meet the Latest Blue Origin Crew
Aisha Bowe
Aisha Bowe is a former NASA rocket scientist, entrepreneur, and global STEM advocate. As the CEO of STEMBoard, an engineering firm featured twice on the Inc. 5000 list, and founder of LINGO, an edtech company, she has been a driving force in equipping students with critical tech skills. Of Bahamian heritage, Bowe aims to inspire young people worldwide with her journey from community college to space.
Amanda Nguyen
Amanda Nguyen, a bioastronautics research scientist and Harvard graduate, has conducted research at NASA, MIT, and the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences. She has contributed to the NASA shuttle mission STS-135 and the Kepler exoplanet project. A Nobel Peace Prize nominee and TIME’s Woman of the Year for her advocacy for sexual violence survivors, Nguyen’s journey represents a historic milestone as the first Vietnamese and Southeast Asian woman astronaut.
Gayle King
An award-winning journalist, co-host of CBS Mornings, and editor-at-large of Oprah Daily, Gayle King is known for her insightful storytelling. As the host of Gayle King in the House on SiriusXM, she has built a career on fostering meaningful conversations. Embracing the adventure of space travel, King is eager to push past her comfort zone as part of Blue Origin’s historic all-female flight.
Katy Perry
Global pop icon Katy Perry, the best-selling female artist in Capitol Records’ history, brings her passion for advocacy to the mission. As a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and founder of the Firework Foundation, Perry has dedicated herself to empowering underserved children through the arts. She hopes her spaceflight experience will inspire her daughter and others to dream beyond earthly boundaries.
Kerianne Flynn
Kerianne Flynn, a former fashion and human resources professional, has spent the past decade championing community-building initiatives. She has highlighted critical social issues as a producer of thought-provoking films like This Changes Everything (2018) and LILLY (2024). Flynn sees spaceflight as the ultimate adventure and hopes to encourage future generations, including her son, to pursue their dreams.
Lauren Sánchez
An Emmy Award-winning journalist, bestselling author, and aviation expert, Lauren Sánchez is Vice Chair of the Bezos Earth Fund. Founder of Black Ops Aviation, the first female-led aerial production company, Sánchez has also penned the children’s book The Fly Who Flew to Space (2024). Her contributions to aviation earned her a place in the Elling Halvorson Vertical Flight Hall of Fame. Sánchez aims to inspire young explorers through her journey beyond Earth.
This mission marks the first all-female crewed spaceflight since Valentina Tereshkova’s solo mission in 1963. New Shepard’s NS-31 will be the 31st flight in the program’s history and its 11th carrying humans.
Gender in space
As of 2023, women constitute approximately 11 percent of the world’s astronauts, 6.6 percent of spacewalkers, and 20 percent of the space workforce. New research points to female astronauts may exhibit greater resilience to the physiological stresses of spaceflight compared to their male counterparts. A study analyzing immune system responses found that male astronauts experienced more significant disruptions in gene activity during and after space missions, with recovery taking longer than in females.
“Males appear to be more affected by spaceflight for almost all cell types and metrics,” scientists write in a Nature Communications study. Lead by Christopher Mason, a professor of physiology at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, says that pregnancy may have something to do with it.
“Being able to tolerate large changes in physiology and fluid dynamics may be great for being able to manage pregnancy but also manage the stress of spaceflight at a physiological level,” he said.
An additional component to gender dynamics in space involves emotions and how individuals express what they see and experience after visiting space. This can fundamentally change how they view themselves, others around them, and the world.
Iya Whiteley, Ph.D., a space and aviation psychologist who has worked with multiple space agencies and astronauts through their mental health after they visited space, says that astronauts often find that they lack the proper words to describe their experiences when they have returned from space. The Debrief reached out to Whiteley to ask her views on whether gender plays a role in how space travelers process their experience of looking back at Earth.
“Astronauts, regardless of gender, undergo a profound shift in perspective when viewing Earth from space,” Whiteley said in an email. “Perhaps it’s less about gender and more about the individual’s unique tapestry of previous experiences that lead to the space flight. Each person brings a unique lens, colored by their personal history, training, and cultural background.”
“The ability to articulate this experience often depends on individual openness and available language rather than gender itself,” Whiteley added. “Women may be more elegant in expressing their experiences and feelings. Especially in this all-female crew, we have professional communicators. Communication about the transforming experience would touch people who have not had this experience.”
Deep emotions from space
“In my experience as a psychologist and Aviation and Space Psychologist, those deeply affected by a profound experience often share it in intimate settings. Civilian astronauts might express their experiences more openly, without the filters that professional astronauts sometimes employ due to their training or professional constraints and the stigma associated with how professional crew should conduct themselves in public engagements. Trained astronauts, while also driven by exploration, are mission-focused and may prioritize scientific objectives.”
“What I love about this all-female crew is we have an expressive artist on board,” Whiteley said. “Katy Perry and her creative work inspire millions. I look forward to seeing what this experience inspires [her] to create.”
The crew’s launch follows in the footsteps of Canadian actor and Star Trek icon William Shatner, who became the oldest person to take off on a Blue Origin rocket into space in October 2021.
In his book Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder, Shatner wrote about his experience in space and how shocking it was to see the vastness: “There was no mystery, no majestic awe to behold . . . All I saw was death.” He expected to be amazed and thrilled by the view from the Blue Origin pod, but that seems not to have been the case.
“I saw a cold, dark, black emptiness,” he continued. “It was unlike any blackness you can see or feel on Earth.”
As Shatner’s experience helps convey, space travel can profoundly impact travelers, especially first-timers, leading to transformative shifts in perspective, which include what is called the Overview Effect. This experience can be difficult to articulate, even for skilled communicators, as language struggles to capture the depth of the experience of seeing Earth from space.
The emotional intensity ranges from awe to fear, altering self-awareness and challenging belief systems. The closest terrestrial comparison is visiting an emerging economy, where exposure to stark inequalities can initially be jarring but ultimately broadens one’s global perspective on happiness and hardship.
In his book, Shatner wrote that while the allure of space remains, the experience revealed to him “that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us.”
“Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound,” Shatner wrote.
“It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered.”
Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and founder of VOCAB Communications. She currently appears on The Discovery Channel and Max and hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on The Debrief’s YouTube Channel on all audio podcast streaming platforms. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton and at chrissynewton.com.