The space flight may have lasted just 10 minutes, but the memes? Infinite.
While Katy Perry and Gayle King’s suborbital journey with Blue Origin sparked headlines and social chatter, it was comedian and queer icon Meg Stalter who truly launched the internet into orbit. Her Instagram spoofs poking fun at the brief space trip quickly became the highlight of the post-flight buzz, proving once again that no one parodies pop culture quite like Stalter.
A Starry Flight Becomes a Meme Magnet
Blue Origin’s all-female space crew included singer Katy Perry, CBS Mornings host Gayle King, Nobel Peace Prize nominee Amanda Nguyen, aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe, film producer Kerianne Flynn, and Lauren Sánchez—Bezos’ fiancée and Blue Origin executive, who also piloted the mission.
The flight, which lasted a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it ten minutes, crossed just past the Kármán line—the internationally recognized edge of space—before gently returning to Earth in a capsule that landed in the West Texas desert. While Blue Origin positioned the mission as a historic moment for women in space, the internet had other ideas.
Enter Meg Stalter: Meme Queen of the Galaxy
Never one to miss a moment, Meg Stalter took to Instagram shortly after the flight to share a spoof that had fans howling. In one video, she impersonated Katy Perry singing a hilariously offbeat rendition of Vanessa Carlton’s A Thousand Miles—with giggles, awkward pauses, and signature Stalter-style quirky chaos.
“If I could fly… to Saturn or Mars, Do you think… I could touch the sky?” she crooned, surrounded by sparkly filters and dramatic lighting. The video was instantly reposted across social platforms, solidifying Stalter’s bit as the unofficial encore of the space launch.
View this post on Instagram
In another clip, she dialed up the absurdity with a mock livestream as “Katy Perry” reporting back from her brief cosmic adventure. Cue a hilariously off-key version of What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong—followed by an unhinged interpretive dance to Perry’s own song, WOMAN’S WORLD.
Naturally, fans declared her the “true star of the launch.”
View this post on Instagram
Katy, Gayle, and the Ground-Kiss Heard ’Round the World
While Stalter dominated the comedy circuit, the flight still delivered a few meme-worthy moments of its own. After the capsule’s landing, both Katy Perry and Gayle King dramatically dropped to kiss the ground—a moment quickly turned into a meme for everything from “Monday mornings” to “surviving Mercury retrograde.”
Me clocking into work this morning … pic.twitter.com/KkirgMv9gv
— tremain (@imtremainhaynes) April 14, 2025
this lasted shorter than Selena Gomez Social media breaks i’m crying pic.twitter.com/CaV0cSSspx
— welp. (@YSLONIKA) April 14, 2025
pigeons when i eat a croissant outdoors: https://t.co/sttl2hRpi3
— Rebecca Alter (@ralter) April 14, 2025
me getting back to my apartment after running errands pic.twitter.com/Oj4dfIasWj
— Tom Smyth (@Tom_Smyth_) April 14, 2025
Footage of Gayle King hesitantly approaching the rocket before takeoff also went viral, with viewers calling her energy “deeply relatable.”
Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos himself reportedly took a bit of a tumble while hurrying to greet the crew post-landing. Though it appears the astronauts missed it, the internet most certainly didn’t.
Critics Raise Eyebrows, but the Internet Delivers
Despite the lighthearted tone, the flight wasn’t without criticism. Some questioned the value of such brief missions, especially during a time of global crises. Others debated whether a 10-minute suborbital hop even qualifies as “space travel.”
But for many, that conversation took a back seat to the entertainment value—led by Stalter’s pitch-perfect parody. It’s clear: space tourism may be serious business for Jeff Bezos, but for the rest of us, it’s meme fuel.
And if Blue Origin keeps sending celebrities into the cosmos, we can only hope Meg Stalter keeps spoofing them back to Earth.
