Six women boarded Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket yesterday, marking the first all-female flight since 1963.
As quickly as they’d taken off, the crew landed back in Texas.
On board were singer Katy Perry, TV personality Gayle King, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, film producer Kerianne Flynn, and Jeff Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sánchez – while A-listers Oprah Winfrey, Kris Jenner and Khloé Kardashian were all there to watch as the rocket landed after a comically short 11 minutes.
Let’s address some of the talking points through three questions, which seemed to be doing the rounds.
Aren’t they brave?
No.
What a time to be alive, hey?
Debatable.
Do you think Katy Perry sang on board the rocket?
Who gives a tiny rat’s scrotum… Even if the crew all reportedly heard Perry’s rendition of ‘What A Wonderful World’ on top of experiencing zero gravity – which sounds about as distressing as that scene in 1971’s Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory when the gang are all in the boat and Gene Wilder’s Wonka recites a poem while a kaleidoscopic Vietnam flashback occurs in real time.
Speaking about her song choice, Perry stated: “I think that it’s not about me or singing my songs, it’s about a collective energy. It’s about us (and) making space for future women. It’s about this wonderful world we see right out there and appreciating it.”
She previously said, prior to launch: “I think from up there, we will think ‘Oh my God, we have to protect our mother.”
Puh-lease.
While the sentiment is noble, let’s call a spade a spade: this headline-grabbing publicity stunt is nothing more than a ludicrously expensive, environmentally damaging and massively tone-deaf photo op masquerading as happy-clappy activism.
Virtue signal all you want, but billions wasted on the project by a billionaire whose company is destroying the planet and thousands of CO2 emissions won’t hide the fact that this is insanely out of touch to the point of parody.
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“Protect our mother”?
Katy, you’ve burned more emissions than Taylor Swift on her entire Eras Tour. At least Tay-Tay brought in millions to local economics. What did you contribute with your trip to the stars, courtesy of Bezos’ Blue Origin?
Nothing, apart from remind people that Bezos’ company’s slogan is “For the benefit of Earth” – which is the death of irony.
And we’re not the only ones who think so.
Several celebrities have spoken out to criticise the stunt, including model and actress Emily Ratajkowski, who revealed she was “disgusted” by the recent space flight.
Ratajkowski took to social media after the mission landed and rightly questioned what good the mission did.
“That space mission this morning? That’s end time shit. Like, this is beyond parody. 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 singlehandedly destroying the planet?”
Ratajkowski went on to ask: “Look at the state of the world. Think about how many resources went into putting these women into space… For what? What was the marketing there?” She concluded her rant by saying how “disgusted” she is by the whole thing.
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While we’re fully on Team Ratajkowski here, she isn’t the only celeb to have condemned the mission as wasteful and self-indulgent.
Actress and director Oliva Wilde threw some deserved shade at the space flight, writing in an Instagram Story: “Billion dollars bought some good memes I guess”, and actress Olivia Munn previously criticised the mission by resuming things rather beautifully: “What are they doing? I know this probably isn’t the cool thing to say, but there are so many other things that are so important in the world right now. I know this is probably obnoxious, but like, it’s so much money to go to space, and there are a lot of people who can’t even afford eggs.”
Munn also described it as “gluttonous”, and questioned what they are “gonna do up there that has made it better for us down here”.
As you can guess, the internet did not disappoint with their reactions.
One user noted how although the trip was supposed to “inspire women”, “the women who already worked at NASA are checks notes getting fired and getting their bios removed from the site”.
Another user remarked that “if Jeff Bezos can send Katy Perry into space, he can pay a wealth tax so every American has debt-free healthcare.”
If only.
Here are some other favourites:
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Now that this pathetic spectacle is over, what’s clear is that vanity flights attempting to normalize space tourism during a time of war, environmental crisis and widening wealth inequality are crass, unwarranted and boil down to a few rich and very misguided people on an ego trip. Not a space trip.
Are they aware of how ridiculous they are?
Doesn’t seem like it. After completing the mission, Perry shared: “This experience is second to being a mom. That’s why it was hard for me to go because that’s all my love right there, and I have to surrender and trust that the universe is going to take care of me and protect me and also my family and daughter.”
The universe is screaming bloody murder right now, and if you want it to protect you and your family, Miss Perry, maybe don’t destroy it during another PR misstep.
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Reality, empathy and a sense of self-awareness shouldn’t escape earth’s gravity.
