“Space Gal” Emily Calandrelli is sharing her out-of-this-world perspective.
Calandrelli, one of six space tourists to join Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin launch on Friday, Nov. 22, was featured on an Instagram post from the Blue Origin account.
The mesmerizing photo captured Calandrelli, the 100th woman to go to space, posing upside-down in the Blue Origin New Shepard vehicle as she gazes out towards Earth. The caption included a transcription of Calandrelli’s interview about the experience.
“We got to weightlessness, I immediately turned upside down and looked at the planet and then there was so much blackness,” read the caption. “There was so much space. I didn’t expect to see so much space, and I kept saying that’s our planet! That’s our planet!”
“It was the same feeling I got when my kids were born, and I was like, ‘That’s my baby! That’s my baby!’ I had that same feeling where I’m seeing it for the first time, and it was beautiful.”
Emily Calandrelli/Instagram
The MIT Aerospace engineer joined developer Marc Hagle and his wife Sharon, entrepreneurs Austin Litteral, James Russell and Henry Wolfond for the space adventure.
The group took off from Bezos’ Texas ranch at 10:30 a.m. EST. This marked the company’s 28th flight, the ninth with passengers. After the Nov. 22 launch, now a total of 47 passengers have made it to space.
Emily Calandrelli/Instagram
The New Shepard accelerated into space nearly three times the speed of sound. Two-and-a-half minutes after they launched, the space vehicle was flying on its own. Once in the air, the space tourists could float around for three minutes of weightlessness and take in the extraordinary experience from the largest windows ever built into a spacecraft.
“We got to MECO (main engine cutoff) and it was like BOOM! I’m not scared any more!” Calandrelli said, per CBS News. “That kick in your pants from (capsule-booster) separation is wild. It is wild. I had to tell my brain, like, this is normal, like, this is expected, it’s supposed to be a kick in the pants.”
Emily Calandrelli/Instagram
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Ahead of the launch, Calandrelli provided a peek into the preparation to her Instagram Stories.
She also posted videos saying goodbye to her son and daughter before she took off, both who ran into her embrace for one last hug. As the launch time approached, she also shared a sneak peek of her and the other passengers heading by truck to the space vessel.
Emily Calandrelli/Instagram
She closed out her Instagram Stories with an adorable video of her daughter using binoculars to spot New Shepard after it landed and one video of Calandrelli running into a room full of supportive viewers cheering her on.
Once she landed, she added an Instagram Reel of her posing at the launch site accompanied by Ariana Grande’s “NASA.” She added text that read: “I just became the 100th woman in space.”
Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sánchez also gave Calandrelli a sweet shout-out on her Instagram Stories. She shared a photo of the astronaut and wrote: “Congrats on becoming an astronaut 🚀🚀🚀🚀.”
