What was billed as a history-making moment for women in space has turned into a cosmic PR disaster for Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin. The company’s first all-female flight, headlined by his fiancée Lauren Sanchez and pop star Katy Perry, is now being mocked as a tone-deaf vanity project dressed up as progress.
The all-female crew of Blue Origin’s NS-31 mission included six high-profile women from diverse backgrounds. Leading the mission was Lauren Sánchez, journalist, pilot, and fiancée of Jeff Bezos, who curated the team to showcase female achievement across industries. Joining her was pop star Katy Perry, who brought a daisy to honor her daughter and sang “What a Wonderful World” in zero gravity. Aisha Bowe, a former NASA rocket scientist and current CEO of STEMBoard, became the first Bahamian-American woman in space. Gayle King, co-host of CBS Mornings, added her name to the history books as one of the first Black women to experience suborbital flight. Civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and founder of Rise, also joined the crew. Rounding out the team was Kerianne Flynn, a film producer known for championing women’s stories.
Recently released footage from inside the capsule shows the crew far more engaged with cameras and selfies than with the majesty of space. The images, which were supposed to inspire the next generation, have instead sparked widespread criticism. Detractors argue the mission had “no scientific purpose” and that it served more as a billionaire-backed Instagram shoot than a real step forward for women in aerospace.
Blue Origin hyped the mission as groundbreaking. What viewers saw was Katy Perry floating with a daisy, singing “What a Wonderful World,” and dedicating her moment to her daughter—sweet, yes, but not exactly a moon landing. Critics were quick to call out the mission as a “joyride for the elite” that “tokenized women” for clout.
Rather than blazing trails, the mission has become a flashpoint for frustration. At a time when real space exploration is struggling for relevance and funding, a photo-op with billionaires’ girlfriends is not the lift-off America needed. Instead of advancing science, it appears this flight was more about hashtags, headlines, and high-altitude hype.