CBS Mornings
Gayle King and Blue Origin’s all-women crew return after historic space launch
cbs-mornings
By Jennifer Earl, Analisa Novak, William Harwood
Updated on: April 14, 2025 / 1:44 PM EDT / CBS News
Blue Origin’s first all-women flight crew blasted off Monday on a journey 62 miles above Earth’s surface to the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary of space. The NS-31 mission marked the 11th human flight of Jeff Bezos’ New Shepard program.
“I can’t even believe what I saw,” marveled “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King after returning from the roughly 10-minute journey.
She joined pop superstar Katy Perry, journalist and philanthropist Lauren Sánchez, film producer Kerianne Flynn, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, and civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen on Blue Origin’s historic trip to space. Bowe is the first Bahamian and Nguyen the first Vietnamese and Southeast Asian woman in space.
They joined a small group of 52 prior passengers with the New Shepard program who have made the quick trip to space. This is the first all-women crew to lift off in nearly six decades, following Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova’s solo spaceflight, Blue Origin said.
