Katy Perry kissed the ground after emerging from Blue Origin’s spacecraft Monday morning.
From launch to landing, Perry — alongside her historic all-women crew — spent a brief 10 minutes, 21 seconds in Jeff Bezos’ New Shepard spacecraft, per NPR.
While floating 62 miles above Earth along the Kármán line, Perry took a moment to sing the Louis Armstrong hit, “What A Wonderful World.”
“It’s not about me,” Perry told Fox News about her mid-space mission song choice. “It’s not about singing my songs, it’s about a collective energy in there, it’s about us, 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.”
After stepping outside the New Shepard capsule, Perry raised a daisy toward the sky, which she brought along for the mission as a tribute to her daughter, whose name is Daisy.
“Daisies are common flowers but they grow through any condition,” Perry told CBS News. “They grow through cement. They grow through cracks. They grow through walls. They are resilient. They are powerful. They are strong. They are everywhere. Flowers to me are God’s smile, but it’s also a reminder of our beautiful Earth and the flowers here.”
Journalist Gayle King, one of the six women aboard New Shepard on Monday morning, said Perry’s ballad was the “best part” of her brief mission to outer space.
“The best part was when we got back in our seats after zero Gs, Katy sang ‘What a Wonderful World,‘” King said following her arrival back to Earth, per CBS News.
King added that she has “no regrets” about taking the journey to space, which she previously expressed feeling anxious about, per NPR.
“I stepped out of my comfort zone in a way that I never thought was possible for me, and now that I’ve done it, I really do feel I can take on anything,” King told NPR, adding that the mission provided her with the gumption to take on another fear — getting her ears pierced.
In addition to Perry and King, journalist Lauren Sánchez, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, rocket scientist Aisha Bowe and film producer Kerianne Flynn were also on the New Shepard spacecraft Monday, as previously reported by the Deseret News.
Monday’s mission, NS-31, was the first all-female spaceflight crew since 1963, per ABC News.
Flynn called her minutes in space, “the most incredible experience of my life,” per NPR.
“Knowing that everyone I loved was standing down there looking back up at me,” she continued, in tears. “I just hope that these types of experiences will clear a path for everyone to be able to do that.”
