On April 14th, Katy Perry and five other well-known women participated in Blue Origin’s space launch and it’s about time we talked about this.
Blue Origin, a space company owned by Jeff Bezos, flew Gayle King (broadcast journalist), Lauren Sánchez (Jeff Bezos’s fiancée), Amanda Nguyen (civil rights activist), Kerianne Flynn (film producer), Aisha Bowe (former NASA rocket scientist), and Perry into space, and the “trip” has been all over the internet since.
The six women flew in Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket and their voyage made history as being the first all-female crew to fly into space since Russian astronaut Valentina Tereshkova’s solo mission in 1963.
The New Shepard rocket lifted off from its West Texas launch site around 9:30 a.m. E.T. (8:30 a.m. local time) on the Monday morning. The rocket then returned back to land 11 minutes later. Yep – 11 minutes.
Despite the history behind the voyage, many have found it hard to take this “trip” to space seriously since it lasted only 11 minutes. Additionally, Perry’s actions in particular surrounding this adventure have been very embarrassing and cringey.
Prior to the launch, Perry participated in interviews talking about her upcoming flight. When asked by Associated Press how she was preparing for her spaceflight, Perry responded, “I’m really excited about the engineering of it all. I’m excited to learn more about STEM and just the math about what it takes to accomplish this type of thing.” The singer’s response shows that she clearly has a lack of education surrounding the field, which made it seem like the “trip” was being taken as a joke right from the beginning.
As the six women made their way to board the rocket, the ladies partook in the Blue Origin tradition of ringing a bell before launching. People online were quick to notice how nervous King looked when it was her turn to ring the bell, and as expected, memes began to circulate quickly.
Video footage of the women’s 11 minutes in space have been released, and there’s a lot to talk about. In one of the clips, Perry pays homage to her daughter Daisy by holding a daisy in front of the camera. As Perry cringely smiles into the camera, other women on the ship can be heard trying to get everyone’s attention to look at the moon, yet Perry continues to just stare into the camera.
In another clip, Perry is seen holding something in the shape of a butterfly with illegible words written on it. Perry later revealed that the butterfly had the set list for her Lifetimes Tour written on it. Perry received backlash for these clips due to the fact that she was more preoccupied with being in front of the camera than looking out into space, and seemingly using the voyage as promotion for her tour.
After the six women returned to land, Perry and King exited the rocket and kissed the ground. Many took to social media to make fun of the two ladies kissing the ground since their “trip” lasted shorter than most people’s commutes to school and work.
In a post-interview with CBS, King revealed that Perry sang “What A Wonderful World” while they were in space. King explained that the women had been asking Perry to sing one of her songs and how Perry wouldn’t because she said, “It’s not about me. I wanted to talk about the world.”
The women have been referred to as “astronauts” since they’ve now been to space, yet they were only in space for a matter of minutes. Real astronauts work incredibly hard to earn that title, while Perry didn’t work hard for this opportunity at all and took this experience as a chance to promote her tour.
The all-female flight was meant to be an inspiration for women, yet the whole ordeal only came off like a mockery of real astronauts and their jobs. Additionally, this launch happened at a time where NASA has been laying off workers at concerning rates. These wealthy women spending an estimated $150K each to be a part of this flight truly comes off in poor taste.
From the cheesy interviews to the even more cringey moments in space, this “trip” has come off as very unserious and privileged. There is no need to be sending people to space like it’s a vacation, and unfortunately it definitely won’t be the last time a group of celebrities take a trip to outer space.