It’s been more than 60 years since a woman travelled into space without a man. And now six of them have blasted off from Earth.
Popstar Katy Perry, author Lauren Sanchez, journalist and TV presenter Gayle King, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, former rocket scientist Aisha Bowe and filmmaker Kerianne Flynn successfully took off in Jeff Bezos‘ Blue Origin rocket this afternoon (UK time).
It was the latest flight of the New Shepard programme, named NS-31, and was aimed at creating a “lasting impact that will inspire generations”, with the women forming the first all-female crew since Russian engineer Valentina Tereshkova’s solo flight to space in 1963.
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All-female crew is launched into space
Image: The capsule landing with a thud. Pic: Blue Origin
Among the celebrities gathered to watch the historic launch were Kris Jenner and Khloe Kardashian, and Oprah Winfrey, a long-time friend of Gayle King.
She told Blue Origin host Charissa Thompson that she had “never been more proud” of her friend.
“I think life is about continuing to grow into the best of yourself, and I think this is one of the fullest expressions of yourself that you can have,” she added.
Image: The flight path of the New Shepard rocket. Pic: Blue Origin
The trip only lasted around 11 minutes, with the reusable self-driving rocket taking off from Launch Site One in West Texas, at 8.30am local time (2.30pm BST).
It reached a maximum height of 107km (62 miles) above Earth, with the women technically entering space as the capsule crosses the Karman line, which is internationally recognised as the boundary of space.
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Kardashians share support for all-female crew
They will not, however, be classed as astronauts by the Federal Aviation Administration, NASA or US military, which all have different eligibility requirements for people to become commercial astronauts.
While in space, the crew had about four minutes of weightlessness to float around and take in the views of Earth from the capsule’s large windows.
The crew capsule then descended back to Earth using three parachutes.
Image: (L-R) William Shatner and Jeff Bezos before their respective New Shepard flights. Pic: Reuters/AP
Star Trek actor William Shatner became the oldest person in spacewhen he joined the mission at the age of 90.
Image: Sanchez hugging Bezos after going up into space. Pic: Blue Origin
How the crew was picked
Mr Bezos’ fiancee led the mission. Sanchez told Elle magazine she chose her fellow crew members because each had “proven their ability to inspire others”.
She said all the women will be able to spread the word on what they felt like during the trip, and also expand on ideas of what the next generation of space explorers will look like.
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Katy Perry gears up for spaceflight
Perry, who is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, told Elle that she had been wanting to go to space for almost 20 years, so it was a no-brainer when she got the call.
She said: “Even when Blue Origin was first talking about commercial travel to space, I was like, ‘Sign me up! I’m first in line’. And then they called me, and I was like, ‘Really? I get an invite?’.”
Image: Journalist and broadcaster Gayle King. Pic: Reuters
For King, who is best known as the co-host of US breakfast show CBS Mornings, the decision wasn’t quite so easy.
“When I got the call from Lauren and Jeff, my first reaction was a no,” she said, adding that she still had “a lot of trepidation” ahead of the trip.
Image: Former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe. Pic: AP
Bowe, a former NASA rocket scientist and chief executive of technology company STEMBoard, said she feels like she has been “training for and waiting for this moment [her] entire life”, while civil rights activist Nguyen and film producer Flynn both said the opportunity was a dream come true.
“It was the most incredible experience of my life to be up there and see such vast darkness in space and look down on our planet,” Flynn said.
Image: Civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen. Pic: Reuters
As well as making history by being the first all-female crew in space, the women were also thought to be the first group of astronauts to have their hair and makeup done for a mission.
“Who would not get glam before the flight,” Sanchez said, before joking that fake eyelashes would be “flying round the capsule”.
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Highlights from William Shatner’s Blue Origin flight in 2021
Bowe said she had already tested out the hairstyle she planned to have on launch day – by skydiving in Dubai.
“I think it’s so important for people to see us like that,” Nguyen said. “This dichotomy of engineer and scientist, and then beauty and fashion. We contain multitudes. Women are multitudes. I’m going to be wearing lipstick.”
Perry put it another way: “We are going to put the ‘ass’ in astronaut.”
Image: The all-female crew of NS-31, the space programme owned by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos
The women also shared details of what they planned to take to space, including the original flag from Apollo 12 – the second mission to the moon – a stuffed animal, shells from Malaysia, and conch chowder, the national dish of The Bahamas, which Bowe grew up eating.
Before the flight, Perry said she felt like she should perform while floating above the Earth, which would make her the first artist to sing in space.
There was speculation that she might sing one of her own songs, but later revealed she actually chose Louis Armstrong’s What A Wonderful World.
Image: Perry kissing the ground after going to space. Pic: Blue Origin
She said: “I think that it’s not about me or about me singing my songs, it was about a collective energy in there. It’s about this wonderful world that we see right out there and appreciating it.”
She added that she would “for sure” write a song about her experience in space, which she said was “10/10”.
Image: Pic: Blue Origin
Perry said she was taking part in the mission for her daughter Daisy Dove Bloom, who she shares with British actor Orlando Bloom, to teach her that “any type of person can reach their dreams”.
Exiting the capsule after landing, the Firework singer held up a real daisy flower in the air, before kissing the ground.
It was in the evening that the bombing started to intensify.
Salah Jundia, his father and brothers huddled together in their home in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City, trying to work out what to do.
It was too risky for them to leave at night. There were a lot of them too. Extended family living across four storeys. They decided they would wait until after dawn prayers.
The explosion tore through the building just before 5am, collapsing one storey on to the next.
Image: The aftermath of Israel’s bombing campaign in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City
Image: Salah Jundia
Jundia says he survived because pieces of bedroom furniture fell on top of him.
Then he looked for his father and brothers.
“I found one of them calling for help. I removed the rubble covering him with my hands. Then I saw another brother covered in rubble but he was dead,” he told Sky News.
Jundia added: “My father was also dead. My other brother was also dead. We got them out and that is when I saw that the whole building had collapsed.”
Over the next few hours, they scrambled to rescue who they could.
An aunt and uncle and one of their children, Shaimaa. Uncle Imad and his son Mohammad. The bodies of Montasir and Mustaf.
Image: One of the child victims of the attack on the home near the Gaza City
Image: Another one of child victims of the attack
Jundia says he could hear cries for help, but they were coming from deep in the rubble and were impossible to reach.
The rescue teams on site – civil defence they are called – did not have the kit to clear through three floors of 500 square metres, 30cm slabs of concrete.
Image: Rescuers drilling to try and reach the people trapped below the rubble
Image: Efforts to free those trapped beneath the rubble near the Gaza City
In the afternoon, Jundia says Israel’s Defence Forces (IDF) told rescue teams to leave as they would be resuming their bombardment.
Jundia buried the bodies he had managed to pull out but he knew 15 of his family members, 12 of them children, were still somewhere inside the rubble, still crying for help.
He made a desperate video appeal, begging the Red Cross and Arab countries to pressure Israel to grant access to the site. It was picked up on a few social media accounts.
Israel won’t allow heavy equipment into Gaza. No diggers or bulldozers, nor the fuel or generators to run them.
They say it will fall into Hamas’s hands.
It was a major sticking point during the ceasefire and it is a major issue now as the bombardment continues, given the fact that hundreds if not thousands of civilians might survive if there were the equipment to extract them.
Image: Members of Salah Jundia’s family left alive after the attack
Image: Salah Jundia and his surviving family
Civil defence trying to get to the Jundia family home over the next few days were halted because the IDF were in the vicinity. A family friend tried himself and was killed.
The footage that our camera teams have shot in Shujaiyya over the past two weeks shows how civil defence teams struggle to save those who are trapped and injured with the most rudimentary of equipment – plastering trowels, sledgehammers, ropes and small drills.
“The tight siege stops civil defence equipment from getting in,” says one.
They added: “So we are taking much longer to respond to these events. Time is a factor in getting these people out. So we call immediately for the necessary equipment to be allowed in for the civil defence to use.”
The IDF say they are investigating the circumstances around the Jundia family as a result of our enquiries.
In relation to the access of heavy equipment into Gaza, they say they work closely with international aid organisations to enable the delivery of humanitarian activities in accordance with international law.
The last contact Jundia had from beneath the rubble was a phone call from his uncle Ziad, three days after the strike.
“The line was open for 25 seconds then it went dead. We don’t know what happened. We tried to call, but there was no answer,” he says.
He and his family were displaced several times before they returned home to Shujaiyya – to Rafah in the south, then Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah.
Along the way, Jundia lost one brother and a nephew to Israeli bombs.
“We were happy and all the family came back. We went back to our house. It was damaged, but we improvised and we lived in it. We have nothing to do with the resistance. We are not interested in wars. But we have been gravely harmed,” he says.
China’s economy performed better than expected in the first quarter of the year – but it reflects a moment in time before the explosive trade war with the US, which has seen the world’s two biggest economies effectively decouple.
Economists had predicted that gross domestic product would grow by about 5.1% in January to March, compared with a year earlier. In the end, it grew 5.4%.
But these impressive figures obscure the very serious challenges China’s economy is facing in the wake of Donald Tump’s trade war – and it is almost certain growth will not remain this strong as the year goes on.
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It was in the evening that the bombing started to intensify.
Salah Jundia, his father and brothers huddled together in their home in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City, trying to work out what to do.
It was too risky for them to leave at night. There were a lot of them too. Extended family living across four storeys. They decided they would wait until after dawn prayers.
The explosion tore through the building just before 5am, collapsing one storey on to the next.
Image: The remains of Salah Jundia’s home in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City
Image: Salah Jundia
Jundia says he survived because pieces of bedroom furniture fell on top of him.
Then he looked for his father and brothers.
“I found one of them calling for help. I removed the rubble covering him with my hands. Then I saw another brother covered in rubble but he was dead,” he told Sky News.
Jundia added: “My father was also dead. My other brother was also dead. We got them out and that is when I saw that the whole building had collapsed.”
Over the next few hours, they scrambled to rescue who they could.
Image: One of the child victims of the attack on the home near the Gaza City
Image: Another one of child victims of the attack
An aunt and uncle and one of their children, Shaimaa. Uncle Imad and his son Mohammad. The bodies of Montasir and Mustaf.
Jundia says he could hear cries for help, but they were coming from deep in the rubble and were impossible to reach.
The rescue teams on site – civil defence they are called – did not have the kit to clear through three floors of 500 square metres, 30cm slabs of concrete.
Image: Rescuers drilling to try and reach the people trapped below the rubble
Image: Efforts to free those trapped beneath the rubble near the Gaza City
In the afternoon, Jundia says Israel’s Defence Forces (IDF) told rescue teams to leave as they would be resuming their bombardment.
Jundia buried the bodies he had managed to pull out but he knew 15 of his family members, 12 of them children, were still somewhere inside the rubble, still crying for help.
He made a desperate video appeal, begging the Red Cross and Arab countries to pressure Israel to grant access to the site. It was picked up on a few social media accounts.
Israel won’t allow heavy equipment into Gaza. No diggers or bulldozers, nor the fuel or generators to run them.
They say it will fall into Hamas’s hands.
It was a major sticking point during the ceasefire and it is a major issue now as the bombardment continues, given the fact that hundreds if not thousands of civilians might survive if there were the equipment to extract them.
Image: Members of Salah Jundia’s family left alive after the attack
Image: Salah Jundia and his surviving family
Civil defence trying to get to the Jundia family home over the next few days were halted because the IDF were in the vicinity. A family friend tried himself and was killed.
The footage that our camera teams have shot in Shujaiyya over the past two weeks shows how civil defence teams struggle to save those who are trapped and injured with the most rudimentary of equipment – plastering trowels, sledgehammers, ropes and small drills.
“The tight siege stops civil defence equipment from getting in,” says one.
They added: “So we are taking much longer to respond to these events. Time is a factor in getting these people out. So we call immediately for the necessary equipment to be allowed in for the civil defence to use.”
The IDF say they are investigating the circumstances around the Jundia family as a result of our enquiries.
In relation to the access of heavy equipment into Gaza, they say they work closely with international aid organisations to enable the delivery of humanitarian activities in accordance with international law.
The last contact Jundia had from beneath the rubble was a phone call from his uncle Ziad, three days after the strike.
“The line was open for 25 seconds then it went dead. We don’t know what happened. We tried to call, but there was no answer,” he says.
He and his family were displaced several times before they returned home to Shujaiyya – to Rafah in the south, then Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah.
Along the way, Jundia lost one brother and a nephew to Israeli bombs.
“We were happy and all the family came back. We went back to our house. It was damaged, but we improvised and we lived in it. We have nothing to do with the resistance. We are not interested in wars. But we have been gravely harmed,” he says.