On April 14, a crew of six women, including pop star Katy Perry, boarded a Blue Origin rocket to pass the internationally recognized boundary of space for just 11 minutes.
Blue Origin, an aerospace company, was created by Jeff Bezos, the second-wealthiest person in the world. On board was also Bezos’s fiancée, Laura Sánchez, as well as CBS reporter Gayle King. This brief trip was promoted as a celebration of successful women, and how far we have come. This was the first all-female space trip since 1963.
For Katy Perry, she claimed this to be her lifelong goal, saying to Elle magazine that she was always researching commercial options to travel to space, and that the opportunity to fly with Blue Origin was a dream come true. The singer has arguably been the biggest recipient of public criticism, especially on social media — whether that criticism comes by way of making Katy Perry a meme or bashing her for being out of touch.
I have to admit that this entire story — the actual event and the news coverage of it — has made me both laugh and cringe. I think the whole idea is ridiculous, and at first, I thought it was fake. Saying that this venture was “out of touch” is generous — it’s completely asinine. The reason our generation is so quick to make this entire thing a joke is because it just feels like it should be. The second-wealthiest man in the world using his money to send people to space is wildly ignorant of the problems that are happening here on Earth. I think shuttling a bunch of famous women on the trip makes it easy to market it as “progressive,” but really it just seems like flaunting of excessive wealth.
Meanwhile, open up any news platform to see how we are in a constitutional crisis, actively funding a genocide, stripping away higher education, and detaining international students. 38 million people in the United States live below the poverty line. Katy Perry going to space feels like a red herring to keep us distracted from our reality.
It’s cool to have a dream and achieve it, but putting up a front that this space trip is a sign of progress is shameful and misleading. It’s rich celebrities with nothing to do but show off how they’re on top, while the rest of us scramble to make ends meet and survive.
