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Gayle King is set to join an all-female crew on Blue Origin’s next space flight this spring.
“I don’t know how to explain being terrified and excited at the same time. It’s like how I felt about to deliver a baby,” Gayle said during the announcement on “CBS Mornings.”
Before agreeing to the adventure, King consulted with her kids and Oprah Winfrey.
“Once Kirby and Will and Oprah was fine with it, I was fine,” King said. “I thought Oprah would say no, no. She said, ‘I think if you don’t do it, when they all come back and you had the opportunity to do it, you will be kicking yourself.’ She’s right.”
The crew will include pop superstar Katy Perry, journalist and philanthropist Lauren Sánchez, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen and film producer Kerianne Flynn.
This will be the 11th human flight for Blue Origin’s New Shepard program, with previous passengers including William Shatner and Jeff Bezos, founder of both Blue Origin and Amazon.
The flight will take the crew to the boundary of space, 62 miles above Earth, to the Kármán line.