Chicago women in STEM celebrate all-female Blue Origin flight to space

A star-studded crew of six women, including Katy Perry and Gayle King, lifted off Monday morning for an 11-minute flight into space aboard a Jeff Bezos-owned rocket ship.

Perry and King embarked on Blue Origin's NS-31 mission with Lauren Sánchez, a former journalist and Bezos’ fiancée; former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe; bioastronautics scientist Amanda Nguyen; and Kerianne Flynn, a movie producer.

Voula Saridakis, head curator at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, said the crew is inspiring to people who might not otherwise see themselves as space explorers.

"If I was young and listening to Katy Perry, and I saw her going into space, I would be like, 'Wow, she did it. Why can't I?” Saridakis said. "It serves as inspiration to demonstrate that women are, in fact, capable of going into space, and to help motivate future generations."

The rocket, New Shepard, took off at 9:30 a.m. from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in Texas. It flew past the "Kármán line," the internationally recognized boundary of space at 62 miles above Earth's surface. The crew then drifted above the boundary for a few minutes of weightlessness before heading back down to Earth.

Bowe, a former NASA rocket scientist and STEM advocate, conducted plant biology and human physiology research while on Monday's flight.

There hasn't been an entirely female space crew since 1962 when the Soviet Union’s Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, embarked on a nearly three-day solo orbit around Earth.

In total, 676 people have been to space, and since 1983 when Sally Ride became the first American woman to go, 104 of those people have been women.

Michelle Nichols, director of public observing at the Adler Planetarium, said women are still making significant gains in space exploration.

Anne McClain was the lead spacewalker for two spacewalks in 2019, and Christina Koch and Jessica Meir completed the first all-female spacewalk in 2020. All three have spent over 200 days in space researching biology, engineering and biotechnology.

Nichols said she hopes this flight will encourage people to learn about the many other women making strides in space.

“When you look at this crew, you start to look at some of these other very experienced astronauts, these courageous women, very smart women, and think 'I could be more like them. That would be awesome,'" Nichols said.

Elsa Soto, director of equity and inclusion in engineering programs at the University of Illinois Chicago, said this is a moment of celebration and awareness for gender equity in STEM, but it is only the start of a conversation that needs to be had.

There are still many obstacles for women and other communities to be able to break into science, technology, engineering and math.

"The challenge here is ensuring that visibility translates into real opportunities, especially for youth from underrepresented communities who need more than inspiration," Soto said. “They need access to mentorship and support, and if this is done right, these public figures can bridge broader conversations about who gets to dream of space and who actually gets the chance to go."