It’s been just four days since the New Shepard NS-31 mission on April 14, and the lucky celebrity astronauts are already well aware of criticism aimed against them. The spacegoers hosted a press conference after the flight – and in many cases only made critics angrier with their righteous justification of the trip.
In the special invite-only mission – hosted by Jeff Bezos’ aerospace company Blue Origin – the all-female crew took a rocket to space in a journey lasting only 11 minutes, but thought to have cost millions. Bezos’ partner Lauren Sanchez was the person to fill the limited seats, and opted to bring pop star Katy Perry, CBS News journalist Gayle King, aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe, film producer Kerianne Flynn, and civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen for her intergalactic tour.
The highly-publicised celeb trip to the stars naturally incited plenty of criticism, with many people pointing out how the money could be used to help those suffering on solid ground. Speaking after the flight, the celebs blasted any idea that their trip was morally wrong – and said that no one had a right to criticise them unless they’d been to space themselves.
Gayle King – who previously called critics of the journey ‘sexist’ – offered one of the most controversial comments in defence of the trip, asking critics during an interview with Extra: “Have y’all been to space? Have you been to space?
“Go to space, or go to Blue Origin and see how they do what they do, and then come back and say, ‘This is a terrible thing.’ Is it expensive? Yes. But one of the things they’re trying to do is – if you get enough people interested – it doesn’t have to be that expensive.”
During yet another panned interview, King raged: “This is what bothers me, because I’ve certainly read some of the things online – coming from people that I know, that I like, that I consider friends!”
She later added: “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.”
King offered a similarly passionate defence of the star-studded journey during the official press conference, when she admitted: “I feel anybody that’s criticising doesn’t really understand what’s happening here.”
The TV host soon offered the mic over to Sanchez, who again offered an open invitation to Bezos’ site – despite the exclusivity and expense of doing so. “I get really fired up a little bit on this, because what I would do is I would love to have them come to Blue Origin,” she said.
“And see the thousands of employees who don’t just work here, but put their heart and soul into this vehicle. Rocket scientists, engineers, all kinds of people. They love their work and they love the mission. And it’s a big deal for them, so when I hear comments like that I just say, ‘Trust me, come with me and I’ll show you what it’s about. And it’s really eye-opening’.”
While King and Sanchez’s solution to the backlash seems to be getting us all spending millions on going to space despite the current economic crisis, Katy Perry is said to be having some regrets behind the scenes. A source said: “Katy doesn’t regret going to space . It was life changing. What she does regret is making a public spectacle out of it.”
The star led the charge in making media-friendly moments out of the trip, including talking off her plans to make space “glam” and “put the ‘a**’ in astronaut,” alongside stealing the show by singing at zero gravity and linking her upcoming tour to the trip, but now wishes she’d kept her head down a little bit more.
On X, formerly known as Twitter, fans made it clear that the celeb crew had missed the mark with their statements after the journey. “Have you been? To space? Lady people can’t afford homes ON EARTH!” one person summarised.
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