On April 14th at 9:31 a.m. in West Texas, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Shepard rocket blasted off with an all-female crew, not female researchers or astronauts who have dedicated their lives to try and get aboard a mission… celebrities, because billionaires have decided that space is the new red carpet. Aisha Bowe, a former NASA rocket scientist turned motivational speaker; Amanda Nguyễn, a civil rights activist and bioastronautics researcher; Gayle King, TV personality; Katy Perry, pop star; Kerianne Flynn, film producer; and Lauren Sánchez, journalist and Jeff Bezos’ fiancée, were all aboard for a very meaningful 10-minute and 21-second joyride to the edge of space… to promote feminism and female empowerment?
No experiments were conducted. No scientific contributions were made—no breakthroughs achieved. But hey, they took selfies and Katy Perry sang a song. Because when you think “pioneering space exploration,” obviously what comes to mind is a group of celebrities floating around for ten minutes like it’s a luxury zero-gravity photo shoot.
Katy Perry even shared on social media, “If you had told me that I would be part of the first-ever all-female crew in space, I wouldn’t have believed you.” Honestly, Katy… none of us would have either. And we still don’t.
Let’s be clear, it’s disheartening. A title that should’ve gone to women who trained, studied, and fought for decades to reach space was handed over to celebrities playing astronaut for a day. Women who’ve sacrificed years of their lives for the dream of spaceflight watched as that dream was turned into a PR stunt.
But hey, the crew felt inspired, and that’s what really counts, right? Not the obscene cost of the mission. Not the erasure of real women in STEM. Not the hollow gesture dressed up as progress. As long as there’s representation, no matter how shallow, we can all pretend history was made.
Honestly, this stunt rivals the cringeworthy “Imagine” video Gal Gadot and her celebrity friends put out back in March 2020, during the height of the COVID lockdowns. You know the one… where a bunch of millionaires sang John Lennon’s “Imagine” from their luxury mansions while the rest of the world was struggling to afford groceries and burying loved ones. The message was tone-deaf then, and this space flight hits the same nerve now.
Back then, they were dragged for centering themselves during a global crisis instead of offering tangible help… like, say, funding vaccine research or supporting overrun hospitals. Fast forward to 2025, and I’d argue this Blue Origin “mission” is cut from the same cloth.
If this crew really cared about empowering women or advancing women in STEM, there are about a thousand better ways to do it. How about using those millions to fund scholarships, research, or mentorship programs for young women in science? But no, that wouldn’t come with a spacesuit, a zero-gravity Instagram reel, or a headline.
Unsurprisingly, the backlash to this space stunt has been ruthless. In response, Gayle King took it upon herself to defend Blue Origin with a statement that somehow made things worse:
“Please don’t call it a ‘ride.’ That is not a friggin’ ride. Whenever a man goes up, you’ve never said to an astronaut, ‘Boy, what a ride.’ You know, we duplicated the same trajectory that Alan Shepard did back in the day. Pretty much. No one called that a ride. It was called a ‘flight.’ It was called a ‘journey.’ Because a ‘ride’ implies it’s something frivolous or lighthearted.”
Let’s pause.
Gayle King, seated comfortably in her zero-pressure space suit for a glorified ten-minute adventure, is now comparing herself to Alan Shepard, the second man in space, a military test pilot who flew in an untested capsule at the dawn of space travel. Alan Shepard risked his life in the name of science and human advancement. And we’re supposed to pretend these two events are… comparable?
King’s defense only added fuel to the fire. Because no, this wasn’t a mission. This wasn’t a journey into the unknown. This was a curated media moment, carefully choreographed for optics and clout.
In the end, this wasn’t a giant leap for womankind, it was a high-priced photo op in a spacesuit. A vanity project dressed up as progress, hijacking a milestone that should’ve gone to women who actually earned it. The mission empowered headlines, not women in STEM.
Call it a “journey” if you want, but let’s be honest: it was nothing more than a 10-minute joyride for the rich and famous. To drive this point home, it’s worth mentioning that other women have been to space and flown with Blue Origin, yet none of them received the same level of publicity. Another detail worth noting is the stark contrast between the previous space suits designed for other Blue Origin passengers and the ones made for this “all-female crew.” It’s a subtle, but telling, reflection of the priorities at play.
(Photo Credit: Blue Origin)