On April 14th, Blue Origin launched a private, all-female 10-minute joyride through space that has since taken the media by storm. The crew consisted of pop star Katy Perry, civil rights activist and bioastronautics researcher Amanda Nguyễn, journalist Lauren Sánchez, aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe, producer Kerianne Flynn, and TV personality Gayle King. While the expedition was modelled as “empowering, groundbreaking, and long overdue”, it instead caught fire for appearing as an act of performative feminism.
This controversy can be traced back to Blue Origin’s roots. The space technology company was founded in 2000 by business tycoon Jeff Bezos, six years after he established Amazon. Blue Origin was created under the mission to “envision a future where millions of people will live and work in space with a single-minded purpose: to restore and sustain Earth, our blue origin.” While this statement is powerful, it also feels contradictory. Jeff Bezos is the second-wealthiest person in the world, boasting a net worth of $209.5 billion. As the founder of Amazon, while owning companies like Blue Origin and The Washington Post, Bezos is deeply intertwined in American capitalism. The grand scale of his endeavours amplifies the impacts of climate change and creates excessive waste across the globe; Amazon alone has seen an over 18% surge in CO2 emissions since they announced their “Climate Pledge” in 2019. Restoring and sustaining Earth should start with mitigating the impacts that Bezos is already responsible for, not continuing to play in the billionaire space race. Privatized space travel has felt less like a betterment of science and more like an exclusive capitalist side hustle.
Most criticism for this spaceflight stems from the women sent to space. The crew is diverse in their accomplishments; notably prosperous in their respective field and “storytellers” in their own respect. However, you’d expect this historical all-female crew to comprise women involved in STEM, specifically those affiliated with aerospace and space travel. While this was the case with passengers Aisha Bowe and Amanda Nguyễn, who are exceedingly involved and accomplished in the field, you also have Katy Perry, a world-famous singer, and Lauren Sánchez, an American journalist, especially famous for her engagement with Jeff Bezos. To put it plainly, people are confused—why were these specific women chosen for the spaceflight? I’d argue the best answer is publicity. You have six highly successful women from different fields with large followings. This means an excess of viewership, attention, and income, leading back to the motivators of capitalism and performatism. While the mission was ultimately triumphant in grabbing the attention of the public, it was not for all the right reasons. Headlines lead with Katy Perry’s space time rendition of “It’s a Wonderful World”, not how Amanda Nguyễn—a rape survivor who put her career aspirations in astrophysics on hold to fight for survivors like herself—finally made it to space. The greatest strides have been overridden by its nuanced absurdities, and I’d argue further that it has damaged the women in STEM initiative by making it seem unserious.
Something I’ve repeatedly seen in critiques and responses to the Blue Origin mission is that visibility does not equate to power. The truth is that the aerospace industry is overwhelmingly dominated by men. As of 2022, the aerospace engineering workforce was 13.6% female, and within that, only 25% hold leadership positions. Society’s ever-present gender hierarchy is embedded in the foundation of aeronautics. So, while it’s empowering and exciting to see history being made with the first all-female space crew in America, the reality of the situation needs to be recognized. Additionally, choosing to send highly wealthy celebrity personalities on this spaceflight feels like a diss to the thousands of women who have poured their everything into this industry; a joyride for one being the life’s work of another. Blue Origin heavily marketed this mission as a female-empowering endeavor, a step in the right direction for aeronautics, but I think they missed the mark here. Speaking for myself, it would’ve been far more empowering to see more women onboard like Nguyen and Bowe, who dedicated themselves and are devoted to science. People want to see passion that pays off and women being recognized for their accomplishments, which we’ve historically had to fight for. And again, while we did see that in some fashion, that’s not what people reading their Twitter feed saw at first glance. This entire situation caught the eye of the media for all the wrong reasons.
Criticizing this situation has put me in a guilty position. While I’m frustrated with the situation at hand, I can’t help but feel unfeminist in my fault-finding. I’m less critical of the women who went on this mission and more with how this backlash came about. Most people are in agreement that the situation was out-of-touch and capitalistically motivated, however, critical attitudes towards women have unfortunately worked their way into the conversation. Efforts labeled as progressive and inclusive get backlash for being unqualified or straight pity cases; this is why women are not taken seriously for their achievements. As a young woman, I know I speak for many others when I say this is frustrating. I’m honestly surprised things weren’t done differently to prevent this, because a lot of us could’ve seen this negative response coming from a mile away.Â
Instead of a historical step in the right direction, female success is once again being made a mockery. The Blue Origin space mission was undoubtedly a historical moment for women, but unfortunately, it may be remembered for the wrong reasons. In the future of space travel and women in STEM, I hope to see real change being made, where women are rewarded for their hard work in aeronautics and not made a spectacle of for the performative image of inclusivity.