The cost for women to go to space varies significantly depending on the mission and the provider:
- For the recent all-female Blue Origin flight in April 2025, which included Katy Perry and five other women, the exact cost per passenger has not been publicly disclosed. However, Blue Origin requires a $150,000 deposit to reserve a seat, and the total cost of a ticket is likely in the millions of dollars. The first-ever auctioned Blue Origin ticket sold for $28 million, and estimates suggest average seat prices range from $64 million to $88 million for such suborbital flights
- Other commercial spaceflight providers have different price points. For example, Virgin Galactic charges around $450,000 per seat for suborbital flights, while a fully civilian orbital mission by SpaceX cost about $220 million in total
- Historically, government space programs like NASA's Apollo program cost billions overall but did not charge individual astronauts. NASA’s Artemis program, aiming to send the first woman to the Moon, is funded by congressional budgets totaling billions, with no direct cost to the astronauts themselves
In summary, for private commercial spaceflights like Blue Origin’s recent all- women mission, the cost per seat is estimated to be tens of millions of dollars, making it accessible primarily to the ultra-wealthy or those invited by the company. Government astronaut missions do not have a direct cost per individual astronaut but involve massive overall program budgets.
