Blue Origin, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s space tourism company, completed its latest spaceflight on Monday with a six-member all-female crew that included pop singer Katy Perry; CBS Mornings host Gayle King and Lauren Sánchez, an author, TV host turned philanthropist and Bezos’s fiancée.
They were joined by activist Amanda Nguyen, ex-NASA engineer Aisha Bowe and film producer Kerianne Flynn on the suborbital flight, which lasted less than 11 minutes.
The company had touted it as the first all-female spaceflight since 1963, when the Soviet Union’s Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to travel to space on a three-day solo mission.
Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket took Perry and Co. just past the Kármán line — 62 miles above Earth, which some international aviation and aerospace experts consider the threshold of space — allowing the women to experience a few minutes of weightlessness before touching back down in West Texas, where they were celebrated as newly anointed “astronauts.”
Several of the passengers, including Perry and King, said the experience of going to the edge of space changed them.
“It’s such a reminder about how we need to do better, be better,” King said. “Do better, be better human beings.”
The backlash
Katy Perry poses with a daisy inside the capsule during Monday’s flight. (Blue Origin)
Critics — including Olivia Wilde, Amy Schumer, Emily Ratajkowski and Olivia Munn — questioned the need for the mission, suggesting that the flight was little more than a vain publicity stunt for wealthy passengers who described in a recent Elle magazine cover story how they’d be getting glammed up for the brief journey.
“Billion dollars bought some good memes I guess,” Wilde wrote on Instagram Monday alongside a photo of Perry kissing the ground after she returned to Earth.
Comedian Amy Schumer also mocked the mission in a video posted to Instagram.
“Guys, last second, they added me to space, and I’m going to space,” she joked. “I’m bringing this thing. Um, it has no meaning to me, but it was in my bag, and I was, like, on the subway, and I got the text, and they were like, ‘Do you want to go to space?’ so I’m going to space.”
Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket blasts off from Van Horn, Texas, on Monday. (Blue Origin/Handout via Reuters)
Ratajkowski said she was “literally disgusted” by the spectacle.
“This is beyond parody,” Ratajkowski said in a TikTok video. “Saying that you care about Mother Earth and it’s about Mother Earth, and you’re going up in a spaceship that is built and paid for by a company that’s single-handedly destroying the planet?
“Look at the state of the world, and think about how many resources went into putting these women into space,” she added. “For what?”
“What’s the point? Is it historic that you guys are going on a ride? I think it’s a bit gluttonous,” Munn said while co-hosting NBC’s Today With Jenna & Friends earlier this month. “Space exploration was to further our knowledge and to help mankind. What are they gonna do up there that has made it better for us down here?”
The response
The Blue Origin crew in space on Monday. (Blue Origin)
During a press conference following the flight, some members of the crew responded to the criticism surrounding the mission.
“Anybody that’s criticizing doesn’t really understand what is happening here,” King said. “We can all speak to the response we’re getting from young women, from young girls, about what this represents.”
Sánchez said comments from critics like Munn get her “really fired up.”
“I would love to have them come to Blue Origin and see the thousands of employees that don’t just work here, but they put their heart and soul into this vehicle,” she said.
The capsule carrying the six women touches down in Van Horn, Texas. (Blue Origin/Handout via Reuters)
King bristled at those who called the flight a “joyride.”
“This is a freaking journey,” King said. “It was not a joyride.”
The CBS Mornings host also addressed the “haters,” who she said were outnumbered by supporters.
“I’ve heard you. I’m not going to let you steal our joy,” she said. “Most people are really excited and cheering us on and realize what this mission means to young women, young girls and boys too.”
“I wish those who are criticizing the mission could read the messages in my inbox,” Bowe said.
