On the 14th of April, Katy Perry and five other women ventured over 100km beyond Earth. The all-female flight crew travelled to the boundary marking the beginning of space known as the Karman line in the name of promoting space tourism and celebrating female empowerment. The unusual fusion of pop culture and space exploration saw Katy Perry partnering with Jeff Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin, which wants to encourage the public to engage more in commercial space travel. In joining forces with Bezos, Perry took her star power to new heights and blended entertainment and aerospace in a collaboration that was as much about headlines as high altitudes.
Prior to the space flight, Katy Perry expressed her excitement about going into space by claiming that the mission was about appreciating ‘Mother Earth’ and that she had dreamt about travelling into space for 15 years. The six spacefarers’ journey in the New Shepard rocket only lasted a total of 11 minutes; however, it released enormous amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This raises the question:
was Katy Perry’s Blue Origin mission a way to fulfil Katy Perry’s teenage dream or just an environmental nightmare?
The Blue Origin website states, “During flight, the only byproduct of New Shepard’s engine combustion is water vapour with no carbon emissions”. Contradictingly, water vapour is actually a greenhouse gas known for affecting the chemistry of the stratosphere and depleting the ozone layer. With space tourism increasing, more rockets are being launched into space, and the risk of harming the ozone layer is increasing vastly. Nonetheless, the New Shepard rocket’s dry mass is 99% reusable, suggesting that commercial space flight might be more eco-friendly than it first appeared- a small step for emissions, one giant leap for green-kind.
While some of the six women aboard the flight brought impressive credentials, from pioneering roles in aviation to lifelong commitments to civil rights, it has been criticised that Katy Perry, and her global fame, inevitably stole the spotlight and eclipsed the hard work and achievements of her crewmates. While women such as civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen brought a powerful legacy of activism and reform to the mission, the presence of television personality, journalist and media veteran, Gayle King, naturally attracted significant public and press attention, at times drawing focus away from Nguyen’s impactful but less widely recognised contributions. Even though the mission’s goal was to highlight female trailblazers, the names of the other women aboard have received relatively little public attention, creating a sense of irony around a journey intended to celebrate their achievements.
Amanda Nguyen was also the first Vietnamese woman to go to space. She spent her 11 minutes in the New Shepard rocket conducting a series of experiments in microgravity. Her scientific investigations focused on women’s health, as well as other scientific investigations, where she tested the absorbency of wound dressings and menstrual hygiene products in the weightless environment of space. Nguyen’s research on menstrual products in a reduced-gravity setting aimed to address historical biases that have excluded women from spaceflights and to build bridges between science and social impact, demonstrating how space exploration can serve broader human rights and equity goals. Let’s hope her efforts contribute to avoiding oversights like those during NASA’s 1983 STS-7 mission, when engineers suggested providing Dr. Sally Ride with 100 tampons for a six-day spaceflight. Yet, it seems that Amanda’s scientific research during the mission has not received the recognition it deserves, with minimal media coverage highlighting her contributions.
Aisha Bowe, an American Aerospace engineer, also enjoyed the crew’s 62-mile trip. She is the CEO of a technology company called STEMboard and also an educational tech company known as LINGO. Bowes’ ambition and intelligence are clearly unyielding. Yet her accomplishments seemed to take a backseat, as the media and public attention gravitated toward the fame of Katy Perry and Gayle King, rather than empowering the achievements of her and her fellow crewmates. So, if the mission did not successfully champion women in underrepresented fields, what purpose did it have?
There have also been many speculations about how much a flight like this costs, with Blue Origin not currently releasing the price of a ticket; however, we know that a £150,000 deposit is required to reserve a seat. Although space tourism continues to blur the lines between celebrity and scientific progress, it’s important not to lose sight of the women whose achievements reach far beyond the limelight. True progress means celebrating not just who shines the brightest, but also who has worked the hardest to reach the stars.
