What in the eyes of the orchestrators and indeed very luck participants was supposed to script history and inspire millions, has very ironically blown up in their faces. The Blue Origin all-female 11-minute voyage into space, courtesy of Jeff Bezos and his fiancé Lauren Sanchez, has been gathering a world of bad press, quite literally.
For the six women that made it to space and back — singer Katy Perry, Lauren, CBS’s Gayle King, producer Kerianne Flynn, former NASA scientist Aisha Bowe, and Amanda Nguyen, a bioastronautics research scientist and advocate for survivors of sexual violence — it was definitely a moment in time. But for all the virtual onlookers, the ‘joyride’ was termed ‘irresponsible’, ‘wasteful’ and downright ‘disgusting’, owing to the insurmountable amount of resources and money that was pumped into it to make it possible…well, seemingly for no real purpose at all.
Since Monday, the memes have been constant and the river of criticism overflowing, from both the public and the crew’s industry peers. Gayle for one,70, chose to take the backlash head-on, by reciting her own piece on why what they did was actually incredibly important. In an interview with Entertainment Tonight yesterday, she woefully expressed: “Space is not an either/or. It’s a both/and,” she said. “And because you do something in space doesn’t mean you’re taking anything away from Earth. And what you’re doing in space is trying to make things better here on Earth. What Blue Origin wants to do is take the waste here and figure out a way to put it in space to make our planet cleaner”.
To make her argument even more air tight, she added a layer of gender dynamics to her piece, speaking about how the space voyage was actually inspiring to both men and women. She explained, “There was nothing frivolous about what we did. So, you know, I’m very disappointed and very saddened by it. And I also say this: ‘What it’s doing to inspire other women and young girls, please don’t ignore that. I’ve had so many women and young girls reach out to me. And men too, by the way…that say, ‘Wow, I never thought I could do that. But I see you doing it’.”
The people don’t buy it but. And neither are they down with the self-imposed sympathy the presenter was trying to evoke among others. Comments still bashing the voyage, and now her hot take on it, read: “STOP SAYING YOU ARE ASTRONAUTS”, “This is great for all girls….. This can teach them that marrying a rich man or becoming a celebrity makes the impossible attainable”, “Gayle, you’re not a qualified and trained astronaut. It was a ride.”, “Do you know what would be inspirational? Like if you fed an entire part of a city? Or paid rent for a year for a single mother that couldn’t afford it” and “To be this rich, privileged and tone-deaf, must be a bliss”, to quote a few.
Do you think Gayle was right in attempting a defence for the near unanimously-panned space trip?
