This week’s Blue Origin flight saw a glamorous sextet of stars, activists and entrepreneurs – including founder Jeff Bezos‘ partner Lauren Sanchez, Oprah Winfrey’s best pal Gayle King and pop star Katy Perry – weightless for four minutes after being rocketed through the Kármán line, the international boundary recognised as space.
The flight on NS-31 marked the first launch with an all-female crew since Russian astronaut Valentina Tereshkova’s solo space flight in 1963 – but many have said the perfectly coiffured passengers wearing couture spacesuits have done little for women in STEM – with critics calling the flight ‘gluttonous’ and ‘a waste of space’.
On the ground, there are plenty of women making waves in space without nearly as much lustrous fanfare.
One such woman is Brit Dr Katie King, who earlier this month addressed the Select Committee at the House of Lords about her space company Bio Orbit, which hopes to use zero-gravity production to change the face of cancer treatment.
The glamourous 32-year-old nanoscientist, who has worked for NASA and is described by her famous TV star mother as ‘brilliant’ and ‘stunning’, focused on antibody cancer treatments – which include immunotherapy drugs for lung, skin and breast cancer.
She aims to make antibodies in a crystalline structure – using space – which could transform the method in which they are delivered to patients.
If successful, it could lead to cancer patients being able to inject drugs at home rather than spending hours in hospital on a drip every few weeks.
Dr King’s technology already has the backing of the European Space Agency, and she is in negotiations for her work to undergo trials on the International Space Station (ISS) next year.
British space entrepreneur Dr Katie King, 32, has a Ph.D from Cambridge and is hoping to use space to transform the way immunotherapy and other drugs are administered
The 32-year-old, whose love of STEM subjects was instilled in her from an early age by her famous mother, addressed the Select Committee at the House of Lords earlier this month with her plans to create a factory in space that could create cancer-beating drugs
Blue Origin’s all-women crew (pictured from left, Kerianne Flynn, Katy Perry, Lauren Sanchez, Aisha Bowe, Gayle King and Amanda Nguyen) have divided opinion after their 11-minute space flight this week on New Shepherd, with some calling their adventures ‘gluttonous’
Real deal: Dr King has worked at NASA and now runs Bio Orbit; she grew up with her TV star mother; and her father is management consultant Patrick King
While the British scientist doesn’t share the surname of her mother taking King from her father, Patrick King, she’s clearly inherited plenty of her intellect from her famous mother, who has also crafted a stellar career thanks to her love of a STEM subject.
The Bio Orbit founder is the daughter of Carol Vorderman and while Dr King’s mathematician whizz mother, who shot to fame on Channel 4’s Countdown, rarely features on Dr King’s social media accounts, Vorderman, 64, recently shared her pride at her her daughter’s success on her own Instagram account.
Sharing a clip of Dr King, who has a Ph.D. in Nanotechnology from Cambridge, addressing the Select Committee at the House of Lords, she wrote: ‘My pride is my daughter knows no bounds, because she is driving this through even though there are many more barriers to her as a woman than to the men.’
The TV star and author said she’d tried to instill a love of STEM subjects from a young age, writing: ‘It’s something which, as a mother, I gave to my daughter from a very young age.
‘A command of numbers and maths, and a passion for space and wonder. She adores her science.’
Vorderman, who also shares son Cameron with Patrick King, who she divorced in 2000 after a ten-year marriage, referenced her own journey to success, saying that when she was growing up, girls were actively discouraged from pursuing careers in education in favour of marriage and children.
The star wrote: ‘When I was young (secondary school in the 1970s) girls were put off science and maths in school deliberately as they just needed to ‘have kids and settle down’ (the road the far right politicians would love to recreate – DO NOT LET THEM).
‘I fought it and became the first kid on free school meals in North Wales to get to Cambridge. It was 1978, I was only 17 years old and I became one of the first 100 women to read Engineering at Cambridge.’
Dr King is the daughter of Carol Vorderman; her maths-loving mum recently gushed with pride on her Instagram account about her daughter, writing: ‘My pride is my daughter knows no bounds, because she is driving this through even though there are many more barriers to her as a woman than to the men’
Mother-and-daughter: Vorderman, 64, said she tried to instill a love of STEM subjects into her daughter from a young age – because she faced her own struggles to be allowed to pursue her dream of becoming a mathematician
Dr King was named UK Female Innovator of the Year 2024 and the Codex World’s Top Female Innovator Award 2024
When Dr King was awarded her PHD in 2022, her mother posted: ‘My girl katie.science. Grafter. Brilliant. Scientist. Funny. Stunning. She passed her PHD in nanotechnology @cambridgeuniversity, I couldn’t be prouder or more hungover.’
Last year, Dr King was named UK Female Innovator of the Year 2024 and the Codex World’s Top Female Innovator Award 2024.
Dr King explained to the Select Committee how her company plans to help revolutionise cancer treatment, saying that antibodies are very hard to crystallise on Earth, but carrying out the process in space makes them highly reproducible with no imperfections.
She explained to the House of Lords how the high-tech process works, saying: ‘If you form them [antibodies] into tiny crystals, you can get a concentration high enough to then inject into the skin in a few minutes.
‘You can just do it at home, just like diabetics inject themselves with insulin.’
Along with colleagues, she is building an automated unit that will be taken to the ISS early next year.
A second trial will take place in 2025 if the proof-of-concept demonstration works. She hopes to one day have her own factory orbiting the Earth that can make the medicine without human involvement.
The process should work for any antibody, she said, and could be used in a range of drugs for the treatment of migraines, osteoporosis and even Alzheimer’s.
