Was Katy Perry’s old woman really historic to space?

This week, the singer Katy Perry It has been the focus of criticism after participating in what would be the first spatial trip manned exclusively by women, thanks to a company flight Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezosalso founder of Amazon.

On the flight they accompanied her Lauren Sanchezpromised of Bezos; Gayle KingCBS chain presenter; Aisha Boweformer NASA rocket scientist; Amanda NguyenCivil Rights Activist, Researcher in Bioastronautics and Affiliated Affiliated Astronaut of Blue Origin; and Kerianne Flynnfilm producer.

The mission, which Blue Origin presented as a “milestone” for female representation in spaceit lasted just over 10 minutes, where the crew reached the outer space, experienced the ungravidity and then returned.

Now, it is questioned that the flight had no scientific purposes and part of its crew was not closely linked to science. Besides, criticize the commercial nature of this and the figure of Bezos.

“Did they really make history?” Are some of the comments on X (Twitter). Even Astronomes and famous personalities said they didn’t believe that this was really an achievement and some rightly made fun of Katy Perry.

And except Aisha Bowe, who is an aerospace engineer with experience in NASA, and Amanda Nguyen, who is an affiliated astronaut, the other women of the mission were not related to space exploration until this moment and now many question, why were they chosen and with what end?

A meaningless space mission?

Blue Origin called this launch “Mission NS-31”, but what was the mission really? New Shepard suborbital rocket He took off at 09:30 in the morning, climbed a little above the Karman line – the boundary between the atmosphere and the outer space – and returned to the earth about 10 minutes later.

Bezos’s company specializes in aerospace transport, but in recent years they have been exploring commercial spatial flights, under the premise of make “space tourism” and bring space closer to people.

However, Flights of this type are not accessible at allIn fact, a passage can cost millions – in dollars. In 2021, When Blue Origin’s first commercial flight was launched, the first ticket was auctioned online and ended at 28 million dollars.

While Blue Origin has not made their prices public so far, to get an idea we can compare with the commercial flights of Virgin Galactic, which They charge about $ 450,000, equivalent to more than 400 million Chilean pesos.

Basically, Space tourism is an alternative only for billionairesbecause An ordinary person could never pay for it.

In addition, space tourism It has an important ecological footprint. According to ethic, Blue Origin tourist flights emit about 90 tons of carbon dioxidethat add to emissions that are already putting the well -being of the planet at risk.

The criticism of Katy Perry

Katy Perry left the capsule that released the New Shepard rocket and kissed the floor as if he had not taken off from him only 10 minutes ago, then, when he spoke with the press, he said that this experience taught him “how much love you have to give” and had previously pointed out that he was representing the brave women of his family.

But, in reality, we can say that It was the commercial figure that Blue Origin looked to boost its space tourism business model, a world -renowned pop star With a wide followers base.

The artist received a wave of teasing, especially after posting in X that “there is no place as a house”, next to an emoji of planet Earth. “Can you send it back?” They were some of the comments he received.

there is no place like home 🌎 ♥ ️

– Katy Perry (@katyperry) April 15, 2025

Even Famous actresses commented their feat. Olivia Wildefor example, he said that “I suppose that with one billion dollars good memes were bought.”

Amy Schumer, actress and comedianHe ironized about this trip on his social networks, posting a video where he joked that he would take a stuffed animal to space.

“Boys, in the last second they added me to the trip and I go to space. I’m going to take this. It means nothing to me, but I was in my bag and I was just in the subway when I received the message: Do you want to go to space? ‘ So I’m leaving, ”he announced.

Other opinions were more critical, for example, Actress and model Emily Ratajkowski, pointed directly to Perry: “You say that you care about Mother Earth and go up to a spacecraft built and financed by a company that, without anyone’s help, is destroying the planet … Look at the state of the world and think about how many resources they were allocated to send these women to space. So that?”.

In this sense The figure of Jeff Bezos has also been criticized, since he maintains alliances with the president of the United States, Donald Trumpthat in its new government has made cuts in scientific research in the US and eliminating gender policies in these areas, limiting space for women in various sciences.

Chilean astronom Criticism should not be aimed at women who manned the commercial mission, if not to Bezos.

“It is the one who carries Blue Origin, and a person who, Contrary to worrying about women’s rights, he has been supporting the administration that has been cutting and invisible to women who work in space exploration during the last weeks“He said.

Did women inspire?

Blue Origin sold this space flight as a milestone for female representation, but without a purpose beyond offering its space tourism services.

The company even compared this trip with that of Valentina Tereshkova in 1963who was the first woman in history to go to space, with real merit.

At that time, Tereshkova was selected from the more than 400 applicants to pilot the Soviet Cosmonove Vostok 6in a solo mission. He spent 3 days in space and in that period completed 48 turns to the orbit of the earth.

And besides, it was a civilian. Before his feat, he worked in a textile factory and was an amateur paratrooper. Then, when she was selected for the astronaut body, she received training in the Soviet Air Force and after her mission she was very active in politics.

Today He is 88 years old and in 2013 he offered to go to Mars if they gave him the opportunity. The Blue Origin crew, on the other hand, is far from a representation like this.

“You would think that scientists and astronomers like me would be happy and celebrating this with bombs and dishes. But we have nothing to celebrate. This has not been a trip for all women, nor does it represent that a door for women in space exploration is opened. This has been a marketing campaign“Paneque said.