Bioastronautics research scientist and civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen will make history later today when she becomes the first Vietnamese woman to fly to space.
Nguyen, 33, is part of the six-women crew on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket, joining Gayle King (news journalist and CBS Mornings co-host); Katy Perry; Kerianne Flynn (film producer); Aisha Bowe (former Nasa rocket scientist and entrepreneur and Lauren Sánchez (journalist, pilot, author, philanthropist and Jeff Bezos’s fiancée) on an 11-minute, suborbital flight to space and back.
Blasting off at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT; 12:30 a.m. AEST Tuesday morning) from the company’s Launch Site One in West Texas, the crew will reach the internationally recognised boundary of space at an altitude of roughly 100 kilometres, known as the the Kármán line — into zero gravity. The historic flight comes 61 years after Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova flew a solo mission to space in the spacecraft Vostok 6, orbiting the earth for 70 hours.
This time, the six women will be flying into space wearing spacesuits specifically designed for their unique and individual bodies. Sánchez enlisted the visionary skills of Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim, creative directors of Oscar de la Renta, to design the body-con jumpsuit made of a flame-resistant stretch neoprene, a synthetic rubber used in wetsuits.
The suit has a compression layer, small pockets on the arms, a dual-zip front and a zipper on the side of each leg. Creating the outfit was a new endeavour for the designers, who are also the co-founders of the brand Monse.
“We really didn’t know where to start,” Garcia told the New York Times. “There’s no precedent. All the references are men’s spacesuits.”
In 2019, a planned all-female spacewalk by NASA astronauts was cancelled after it was discovered that the International Space Station did not have two spacesuits that fit the two women.
Since the Blue Origin crew will not go out into space, the designers did not need to consider the life-support system of the classic astronaut suit in their designs — although they still had to adhere to certain specifications.
“Simplicity was important, and comfort, and fit,” Garcia said. “But we also wanted something that was a little dangerous, like a motocross outfit. Or a ski suit. Flattering and sexy.”
“I, personally, would want to look very slim and fitted in my outfit,” Kim said.
Sánchez added, “Usually, you know, these suits are made for a man. Then they get tailored to fit a woman. I think the suits are elegant, but they also bring a little spice to space.”
The rest of the crew also expressed their commendations of the suit. Amanda Nguyen said they are “revolutionary”, and that they make the statement that “women belong in space.”
Gayle King described them as “professional and feminine at the same time.”
Earlier this month, King told Elle Magazine she “had a lot of trepidation” about the flight.
“But I also know it’s very interesting to be terrified and excited at the same time. I haven’t felt like this since childbirth. Because I knew childbirth was going to hurt. But it’s also stepping out of your comfort zone.”
In the same interview, Katy Perry spoke about her excitement about the future of space, saying: “Space is going to finally be glam. Let me tell you something. If I could take glam up with me, I would do that. We are going to put the ‘ass’ in astronaut.”
The magazine noted that the upcoming flight will be the first time anyone has been to space with their hair and makeup done.
Nguyen, who was nominated for the Nobel peace prize in 2019 and was one of Time Magazine’s 2022 Women of the Year, believes that it’s important for people “to see us like that.”
“This dichotomy of engineer and scientist, and then beauty and fashion,” she told the magazine. “We contain multitudes. Women are multitudes. I’m going to be wearing lipstick.”
Sánchez said she is confident that the flight will inspire people and bring them together. “Little girls and little boys are going to be more curious about space and what else is out there because we’re bringing attention to it,” she said. “It will be great to inspire a new generation.”
During their 11-minute mission, Nguyen will also be equiped with a wearable ultrasound prototype patch to undertake MIT research, which will test out the capabilities of an integrated physiological monitoring unit. Researchers from the Media Lab’s Women’s Health Program hope to ultimately develop a wearable garment with embedded ultrasound to measure musculoskeletal deconditioning and spine elongation in astronauts.
You can watch a livestream of the New Shepard launch on Blue Origin’s website 90 minutes before liftoff, as well as on YouTube, Space.com homepage and Blue Origin X account.
Image credit: Katy Perry & Blue Origin IG
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