What do a rocket scientist, a bioastronautics research scientist, a broadcast journalist, an author, a film producer, and a music artist all have in common? They were all a part of the six-woman crew on the Blue Origin mission NS-31.
The Blue Origin mission NS-31 was an 11-minute flight into space, funded by Blue Origin founder and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.The flight aimed to promote ‘space tourism,’ a term used to describe future human colonization of space, as well as develop research and inspire people to have an interest in space and space travel.
The NS-31 mission patch, worn on the spacesuit of each of the crew members, is adorned with the names of each crew member as well as many hidden symbols to reflect each member’s core values and personal missions. A more detailed explanation is available on Blue Origin’s official website.
Despite it appearing to be well-intentioned, the flight has faced immense backlash and critique with many people calling it out of touch on social media, despite being marketed as the first all-women crew in space.
The title completely disregards Valentina Tereshkova, a Russian astronaut’s, expedition as the first space flight with an all-female crew almost 70 years ago in 1963.
Most of the online backlash originates from the disapproval of artist Katy Perry being aboard, who had very little experience in the space field, joining the other five members on the crew. Only two out of the six members were actual scientists.
Perry becoming the face of the expedition rather than the two scientists/astronauts aboard, Aisha Bowe and Amanda Nguyễn, poses the question of whether or not the expedition was merely a publicity stunt to promote Perry’s upcoming tour and flopping album, 143 (produced by Capitol Records).
Despite the expedition being negatively received by the public, there is little doubt that the widespread media coverage of the flight would have inspired many young women and girls to pursue careers in STEM.
Hopefully, future companies experimenting in space travel will learn from the negative public opinion and push more female scientists, pilots, and engineers into the spotlight rather than socialites and celebrities.
