Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ first all-women spaceflight landed safely from the stratosphere around 8:40 a.m. local time on Monday.
The production started with the group of five cosmonauts—CBS host Gayle King, singer Katy Perry, activist Amanda Nguyen, aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe, film producer Kerianne Flynn, and Bezos’ fiancée, Lauren Sánchez—doing their best Star Trek impressions in sleek blue suits and a variety of glamorous poses on Bezos space company Blue Origin’s Instagram.
Such began a morning adventure that included a weeping Oprah Winfrey, a tumbling Bezos grateful his fiancée can’t sue him for liability, and Perry covering “What a Wonderful World” instead of her perhaps more apt hit, “E.T.” Oh, and an 11-minute spaceflight with just a few moments of defying gravity.
Here’s a list of some of the morning’s most emotional, comical, and absurd highlights:
CBS Gets Emotional for King’s Excursion
CBS News correspondent Vladimir Duthiers launched into a pre-flight eulogy for his space-bound colleague early Monday, saying emotions struck him as he watched King board the New Shepard rocket, Blue Origin’s 11th human flight for the program.
“I gave her the biggest, strongest hug I’ve ever given her, and I told her we all loved her, that we were all rooting for her,” Duthiers told CBS Mornings host Nate Burelson as the two watched the live stream. “I’m already getting emotional. It’s only about 30 minutes until this launch happens, and I’ve had tears in my eyes for the last hour or so.”
Ding Goes the Bell
As the women boarded the rocket, each clanged a ceremonial bell. Flynn’s clang was confidant, Bowe was exuberant, Nguyen was excited, Perry was jubilated, Sánchez clasped her hands in prayer, and an anxious King looked like she had a visceral desire to get the whole thing over with.
All-female Blue Origin crew rings bell before launch.A new tradition was born as the all-woman New Shepard crew rang a ceremonial bell before boarding their Blue Origin spacecraft.“It’s about inspiring the next generation of women,” the team said.Follow Orbital News.… pic.twitter.com/btbv73a64W
— Orbital News (@orbital_news_) April 14, 2025
A Weeping Oprah Celebrates Her Friend’s Voyage
Video showed a weeping Oprah Winfrey near Kris Jenner and Khloe Kardashian as she watched her close friend King and the gang blast past the Kármán line—the internationally recognized barrier between Earth and space. She told a reporter she had “never been more proud” of her friend of nearly 50 years (who has a deathly fear of flying).
“This is bigger than just going to space,” Winfrey told a reporter at the scene. “This is overcoming a wall of fear, a barrier—I think it’s going to be cathartic in so many ways.”
Bezos Races—and Trips—to See His Love Again
The Amazon billionaire and Blue Origin founder couldn’t wait to see his newly minted astronaut fiancée—so much so that he stumbled on his way to the pod door before the flight crew emerged. It’s hard to blame him—an upcoming multimillion-dollar, star-studded wedding in Venice could jostle the nerves.
Still, A Hug Can’t Last Too Long
Sánchez was equally as eager to see her fiancé, pulling him into a tight hug as she walked out of the pod. The two embraced for a few seconds before she gently pushed him away to find her kids. “Where are my babies?” she said.
Sánchez gushed about their upcoming nuptials to a reporter on the scene. “I had to come back,” she told a reporter. “We’re getting married.”
Gayle King’s Grateful to Touch the Ground
As King left the pod, she expressed gratitude for gravity and celebrated the end of the ordeal, throwing up her hands and, just after climbing down the steps, kneeling and pressing her head to the ground.
“Let me appreciate the ground for just a second,” she said, picking up a clump of sand. “Thank you, Jesus! Oh my God!”
Katy Perry’s In-Flight Nep-Tunes
The internet speculated in the days leading up to the flight about whether Perry would perform on board. Chart-topper “Firework?” Underperformer “Woman’s World?”
Instead, after kissing the ground upon landing, Perry admitted she belted a tune she didn’t pen: Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.”
“It’s not about singing my songs. It’s about a collective energy in there,” Perry said after the flight. “It’s about making space for future women and taking up space and belonging, and it’s about this wonderful world that we see right out there and appreciating it. This is all for the benefit of Earth.”
However, if her crewmates had their way, they would’ve gotten their own Perry tour performance. King said she and some of the other women urged her to do “Roar” or “Firework.”
They may have to wait for Perry’s Lifetimes Tour, which will make its way in August to New York’s Madison Square Garden—a less than 15-minute drive from King’s uptown CBS Mornings studio. (Perry unveiled the tour’s setlist in a blurry video from the flight.)
It’s unclear if Monday’s soap opera will join Shatner in Space on Bezos’ Prime Video.
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