Gayle King can officially add “astronaut” to her bio.
On Monday, April 14, the 70-year-old news anchor kissed the ground in West Texas after successfully completing Blue Origin’s first space trip with an all-female flight crew, making her a bona fide space explorer.
“I cannot believe what I saw,” the “CBS Mornings” anchor said after she landed. “I’m so proud of me right now.”
King was joined for the historic voyage by singer Katy Perry, journalist and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sánchez, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, and film producer Kerianne Flynn.
On the ground, a group of supporters, including notables, the crew’s loved ones, and, of course, King’s bestie, Oprah Winfrey, had gathered for the event. Mae Jemison, a former NASA astronaut and the first Black woman to ever travel to space, was also on hand describing what the crew was experiencing. Those there in support of King, which also included her two adult children, had donned the color yellow for the occasion, and footage of Winfrey bursting into tears as she watched her longtime friend soar into space has since gone viral.
“I have never been more proud of my friend than today,” Winfrey told reporters of her friend of roughly 50 years. “This is bigger than just going to space.”
Winfrey added that for her friend, who is “in anybody’s lap if there’s a slightest bit of turbulence” on a regular flight, this morning’s voyage is a real triumph over King’s anxiety and fears.
“I think it’s going to be cathartic in so many ways for her,” Winfrey said.
At exactly 9:30 a.m. (EST), King and the others dressed in sleek, matching blue spacesuits blasted off. They skyrocketed (literally) on a Blue Origin New Shepard launch vehicle to an altitude of 62 miles above Earth’s surface. The flight, which lasted all of 10 minutes, crossed the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary for the edge of space.
King and the rest of the all-female crew experienced weightlessness and epic views of the Earth’s globe and the moon during the quick trip. As King “oohed and awed” audibly on a live sound feed from inside the capsule, Perry sang “What a Wonderful Word.”
Back on the ground, an overjoyed King shared that the experience was “oddly quiet” and “peaceful.” Looking down on the blue planet, she said, “To me, it’s such a reminder about how we need to do better, be better. Do better, be better human beings.”
“It’s so nasty and so vitriolic nowadays,” she continued. “If everybody could experience that peace that we had up there and the kindness and what it takes to do what we did, all the people that it took to get us up there and get us back safely, I’ll never, ever, ever forget.”
