(Image via Space.com)

Staff writer: Gwen Pichette

Email: gpichette@umassd.edu

On April 14th, The Blue Origin celebrity flight launched as planned into suborbital space for a total of 10 minutes and 21 seconds.  

The team included a variety of different women, including pop-star Katy Perry, news anchor Gayle King, bioastronautics research scientist Amanda Nguyen, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, and film producer Kerianne Flynn. The team also included Lauren Sánchez, Jeff Bezos’ fiancé. 

Jeff Bezos, the third richest man in the world and the owner of Blue Origin, financed the mission. The purchase of one ticket on Blue Origin requires a $150,000 deposit alone. 

The exact price each member of the crew had to pay for a ticket aboard has not been disclosed. But back in June of 2021, a seat from one of Blue Origin’s maiden flights was auctioned off for a whopping $28 million. It is estimated that the tickets were sold for a similar price for this most recent mission.

The mission, known as NS-31, consisted of the first all-female space crew in over 60 years. Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman to travel to space, orbiting the earth for a groundbreaking three-day solo flight in 1963. 

This flight was significantly shorter, as it briefly entered suborbital space before coming immediately back down. 

Those part of the NS-31 space crew deemed it a celebratory moment for feminism. Gayle King said that she was excited about “what it’s doing to inspire young women and girls.”

However, many are not so easily impressed.

Countless people, including many notable celebrities, have berated the space mission, calling it a blatant waste of resources and carbon emissions. 

According to a 2022 World Inequality Report, a single space flight of just a few minutes emits more carbon emissions than one billion individuals will emit in their lifetime. 

Katy Perry however, appeared oblivious to the negative impact the trip had on the environment, claiming in an interview that it was all “for the benefit of Earth. Perry added, “ I wanted to model courage and worthiness and fearlessness.”

Actress and model Emily Ratajowski took to Tiktok to complain about Perry’s statements that many have agreed are out-of-touch. “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. For what? I’m disgusted.” 

British TV personality Vicky Pattinson, alum of Geordie Shore, also took to social media to critique the mission, saying, “This isn’t feminism. They want to distract you with this so you don’t focus on the fact that slowly, almost imperceptibly, women’s rights are being taken away.”

Pattinson added, ‘I don’t think we need to see a bunch of uber rich women fired into space for 5 minutes… We need equal pay, access to reproductive healthcare, the right to vote, to feel safe, autonomy over our own bodies, the right to safe, accessible abortion.’

Katy Perry also received flack for her revelations about love that she shared upon safely landing from the barely 11 minute trip. She claimed that the realization that she came to about love would not have been possible without going to space, which lead many to quickly call her out as classist.

Even the popular foodchain Wendy’s has joined in on the discourse, mocking the pop-star in a social media chain on X. Wendy’s social media account jokingly asked “can we send her back?” in response to a post announcing her landing from the brief space trip. 

Wendy’s then posted photos of Perry kissing the ground right after landing—a photo which has been another source of intense criticism from the media—with the caption, “I kissed the ground and I liked it,” in reference to her 2008 hit song. 

Perry is reportedly disheartened by the backlash but does not regret it. 

Gayle King has made similar statements that have garnered criticism. When asked by Entertainment Weekly what she thinks of the hate, she replied “Have you been? Have you been? If you’ve been and you still feel that way after you come back, please, let’s have a conversation.”

Yet King claims to not regret the mission despite the criticism. She has acknowledged the backlash but remains staunch in her decision: “I know there are some haters, but I’m not going to let people steal my joy, and steal the joy of what we did or what we accomplished that day. I’m just not going to let it in.”