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“Pop star Katy Perry and five other women launched into space on a Blue Origin rocket and successfully returned to Earth on Monday, marking the first all-female spaceflight in more than 60 years…
“[The crew] traveled to the edge of space, where they experienced a brief period of weightlessness before returning to Earth in a flight lasting around 11 minutes, according to a live broadcast by Blue Origin, the space company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos… The six-person crew also included Bezos' fiancée Lauren Sanchez, CBS host Gayle King, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, scientist Amanda Nguyen and film producer Kerianne Flynn.” Reuters
“The mission, the first for an all-female space crew since 1963, was marketed as a feminist landmark − a chance to see mothers and female storytellers launch toward the heavens. Critics, however, lambasted it as a ploy to promote Blue Origin's pricey tickets to space.” USA Today
Many on both sides are critical of the publicity around the launch:
“Though women remain severely underrepresented in the aerospace field worldwide, they do regularly escape the Earth’s atmosphere. More than 100 have gone to space since Sally Ride became the first American woman to do so in 1983. If an all-women spaceflight were chartered by, say, NASA, it might represent the culmination of many decades of serious investment in female astronauts… An all-women Blue Origin spaceflight signifies only that several women have amassed the social capital to be friends with Lauren Sánchez.”
Amanda Hess, New York Times
“What this ‘mission’ represents to me, a young-ish woman, is a tasteless show of wealth and physical flaunting from a group of desperate, pathetic women – the real NASA scientists excluded – for whom a million likes on Instagram is not enough. The Blue Origin money would have been better spent on a half-dozen Kill Bill jumpsuits and 20 minutes at an indoor skydiving facility. But then the whole world wouldn’t have been forced to watch.”
Teresa Mull, Spectator World
Other opinions below.
“In America, while a rising number of women are dying because doctors refuse to treat their miscarriages or are arrested for having them, where millions of women may lose hard-won voting rights while others are eradicated from public life and historical record because of their gender, six rich women did what rich people do best in perilous times: blissfully abscond to the safety of their own private estates or islands or yachts — or, in this case, spaceship…
“But space tourism is not feminism. It is consumer capitalism, at its most inaccessible. Businesses have for decades tried to sell us this form of what feminist writer Andi Zeisler has called superficial ‘marketplace feminism.’… The glamour shots of the six women in their suits — looking serious but sexy, their partly unzipped suits flashing just a bit of skin — are proof of how this faux feminism mutilates real feminist politics and turns it into an aesthetic posture.”
Marcie Bianco, MSNBC
“There are at least two women on the mission who can be credited as serious persons: Aisha Bowe, an aerospace engineer, and Amanda Nguyen, a civil rights entrepreneur whose past work with Nasa makes her something closer to an actual astronaut. But most of the crew’s self-presentation and promotion of the flight has leaned heavily on a vision of women’s empowerment that is light on substance and heavy on a childlike, girlish silliness…
“In an interview with Elle, the crew members paid lip service to the importance of women, and particularly women of color, in STEM… But mostly, they seemed interested in talking about their makeup and hair. ‘Space is going to finally be glam,’ Katy Perry said, bizarrely. ‘Let me tell you something. If I could take glam up with me, I would do that. We are going to put the ‘ass’ in astronaut.’…
“Space used to be a frontier for human exploration, a fount of innovation, and a symbol of a bright, uncertain and expansive future. Now, it is a backdrop for the Instagram selfies of the rich and narcissistic. The Blue Origin flight does not make me feel like humanity will reach new heights of achievement. It makes me feel like everything that is coming is grimly predictable, tailored to the impulses of the richest, least responsible and least morally intelligent people on Earth.”
Moira Donegan, The Guardian
“Blue Origin was founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos (a man). All three CEOs have been men. The overwhelming majority of Blue Origin’s scientists, engineers, technicians, programmers, and laborers are men. I can’t verify this anywhere, but I’ll betcha a Diet Coke that most of their janitors are men, too. The idea that one Blue Origin flight represents some kind of feminist accomplishment is just nuts.”
Scott Pinsker, PJ Media
“For all this ‘I am woman, hear me roar’ stuff, it should be noted that this was an automated amusement ride. None of these women were a ‘crew’ in any actual sense… Despite every attempt to make this into something more than it was, I'm struck by how tone-deaf it was. Don't get me wrong. I have no problem with space exploration and pushing the boundaries of technology, especially in the aerospace sector. But man, seeing a bunch of left-wing women pretend they are changing the world because they sat strapped into a capsule for a few minutes is a bit much.”
Bonchie, RedState
Some argue, “When you look at the crew, the source of the media’s discontent with the space mission becomes clear… Celebrities, journalists, and various onlookers still haven’t forgiven Bezos (the founder of Blue Origin) and Sanchez for attending President Donald Trump’s inauguration… Some have also taken issue with the crew members’ confession to Elle magazine that they will — the horror! — have their hair and makeup done for the well-publicized affair…
“Another less publicized quote from the Elle interview is that Flynn said her toddler’s preschooler classmates didn’t believe him when he said his mom was going to space. The teachers didn’t believe him either, and one of the children suggested, ‘Moms don’t go to space.’ ‘It was a really tough moment,’ Flynn recalled…
“We may have lost our passion for exploration in favor of fighting culture wars, but there are still reasons to go to space… Blue Origin’s stated goals are to ‘radically reduce the cost of access to space,’ ‘harness the vast resources of space,’ and ‘inspire and mobilize future generations.’ Those sound like pretty good reasons for celestial exploration. Plus, there’s the added bonus of a young boy who gets to tell his classmates that his mother really went to space.”
Madeline Fry Schultz, Washington Examiner
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