'Space is going to be glam': Bezos fiancee leads female space mission

All-women crew on Amazon boss’s Blue Origin rocket finally gets one up on Elon Musk’s SpaceX

- Ed Helmore New York & Robin McKie

Jeff Bezos is blasting his bride-to-be Lauren Sanchez and her “guests” to space tomorrow — a plan that might, under other circumstances, contain mixed messages.

A crew of six women - Amanda Nguyen, a civil rights activist who will become the first Vietnamese woman to fly to space; the CBS Mornings cohost Gayle King; the pop star Katy Perry; film producer Kerianne Flynn; former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe; and Sanchez, a journalist and philanthropist - will blast off on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket on an 11-minute, suborbital flight to the edge of space and back.

Though billed as the first all-female crew to reach the Karman line, the internationally recognised boundary of space at an altitude of 62 miles, it is not technically so: the cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova flew a solo mission to space in 1963.

But Tereshkova didn’t blast off with the accoutrements afforded the new ladies of space. “We're a crew!” they reportedly shouted in unison at a photoshoot for Elle magazine, each rocking “an all-black power look”. The magazine noted that this will be the first time anyone has been to space with their hair and makeup done.

“Who would not get glam before the flight?” Sanchez remarked. Perry added: “Space is going to finally be glam. We are going to put the ‘ass’ in astronaut.”