[Image: Blue Origin]
Earlier this week, a handpicked squad of six women – including pop star Katy Perry, CBS talking head Gayle King, film producer Kerianne Flynn, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen and Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sánchez – strapped in for an 11-minute joyride to the edge of space, courtesy of the Amazon overlord’s pet space project.
The whole affair, a glorified selfie mission disguised as a “historic flight,” generously handed out the title of “astronaut” to this crew of mostly ultra-rich media darlings after a grand total of two days of safety flashcards and trust falls. Predictably, the stunt got roasted from the orbit.
Because honestly, aside from torching a mountain of cash and tossing out the kind of hollow soundbites about “making space for future women”, the crew brought very little to the table for science, society, or anything even remotely close to meaningful feminism. I mean, neither have the other space flights orchestrated by Bezos, but you know, we live in a world where women sometimes get harsher backlash, so here we are.
Let’s be honest: the synchronised eye-roll this PR circus triggered could probably be spotted from the International Space Station.
Even Emily Ratajkowski joined the conversation on her TikTok, saying, “privilege is not an accomplishment”.
“That space mission this morning, that’s end-time shit. Like, this is beyond parody,” she began. “Saying that you care about Mother Earth, and it’s about Mother Earth, and 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, and for what? For what, what was the marketing there? And then to try to make it like … I’m disgusted. Literally, I’m disgusted.”
I mean, I’m sure EmRata has seen her fair share of private jets, which are fuel guzzlers, but still, she has a point.
Someone kindly pointed out where the money could have gone instead:
Later, EmRata returned to TikTok to expand on her thoughts about the Blue Origin flight, which also included former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe and research scientist Amanda Nguyen on its 11th manned mission.
“I think that this space mission is confusing to people because seeing women and people of color in spaces like science and politics that have not previously included them feels and looks like, really looks like — optically looks like — progress,” Ratajkowski said in her latest video.
“But the truth is, is that having a man who has gained his power and become a part of the one percent purely through exploitation and greed deciding to take his fiancée and a few other famous women to space for space tourism is not progress.”
Someone else added to this nicely:
While Emily continued, “It just speaks to the fact that we are absolutely living in an oligarchy, where there is a very small group of people who are interested in going to space for the sake of getting a new lease on life while the rest of the population — most people on Planet Earth — are worried about paying rent, or, you know, having dinner for their kids.”
In all honesty, though, hearing about Amanda Nguyen’s journey was actually inspiring:
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Until Katy Perry ruined that by getting excited “about the math of what it takes”:
Watch on TikTok
As usual, though, the widespread criticism appeared to have fallen on deaf ears.
“This is a freaking journey,” a defensive King said during a post-launch interview. “It was not a joyride.”
“I’m not going to let you steal our joy,” she added while addressing her “haters.”
Ratajkowski echoed what she claimed another creator said, “‘Privilege is not an accomplishment,’” adding,
“Exploitation is certainly not an accomplishment, and being able to take the privilege that you have gained from exploitation and greed of the planet, of resources, of human beings, and then doing something like going to space for 11 minutes, is certainly not an accomplishment.”
That’s where we will leave this, then.
[Sources: Hollywood Reporter & Futurism]
