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Monday’s Blue Origin all-female house flight has seemingly achieved the not possible. In a world the place all the things from life-saving medical advances to Disney’s programming slate has been the sufferer of a massively divided nation, very tremendous individuals on each side have made an effort to chide the high-profile jaunt, together with US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy.
The privately owned Blue Origin NS-31 self-flying rocket counted broadcast journalist Gayle King, singer Katy Perry, and Lauren Sánchez (engaged to Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos) in its seats, in addition to STEM advocate and entrepreneur Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyễn, and movie producer Kerianne Flynn. Sánchez, who together with her fiancée proudly stood alongside a passel of tech billionaires such Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg as Donald Trump was sworn in as president this yr, “led the organization of the historic mission,” Elle studies, and “chose each of the women because of their proven ability to inspire others.”
Sánchez’s proximity to energy wasn’t sufficient to maintain people like Olivia Munn from elevating questions concerning the flight. Arguably one of many earliest public critics of the journey, throughout an April 3 look on NBC’s Today With Jenna and Friends, the actor mentioned, “I know this probably isn’t the cool thing to say, but there are so many other things that are so important in the world right now. What are you guys gonna do up in space? What are you doing up there?”
“What’s the point? Is it historic that you guys are going on a ride? I think it’s a bit gluttonous…Space exploration was to further our knowledge and to help mankind. What are they gonna do up there that has made it better for us down here?”
After the 11-minute flight, criticism grew louder, with Emily Ratajkowski saying through TikTok that the flight is “end-time shit. Like, this is beyond parody.”
“Look at the state of the world and think about how many resources went into putting these women into space. For what? What was the marketing there?”
Olivia Wilde was simply as biting, if extra succinct, sharing a photograph of Katy Perry kissing the bottom upon the flight’s touchdown to Instagram Stories, with the caption “Billion dollars bought some good memes, I guess.”
The backlash has been sufficient that King fired again at critics this week, saying, “I know there are cranky Yankees. I know there are some haters. I’m not going to let people steal my joy.”
“I still have a hard time calling myself an astronaut, but two of the astronauts on board—[Aisha Bowe] is a rocket scientist, [Amanda Nguyen] is an astrophysicist-activist—were actually doing experiments. Every time one of those goes up, you get some information that can be used for something else, so I wish people would do more due diligence.”