Musk produces space missions … Bezos an expensive carnival ride

As is the case with many celebrity stunts, the recent flight of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space craft has produced considerable backlash– largely due to its all-female celebrity passengers and the hyperbolic description of the flight.

Bezos’ latest venture to the edge of outer space included pop star Katy Perry, CBS journalist Gayle King, former NASA scientist Aisha Bowe, social activist Amanda Nguyen, documentary producer Kerianne Flynn and author Lauren Sanchez (aka Bezos’ fiancée).  It was reported that the ticket price was $150,000 – although it was never clear who paid and how much.

This is not the first time that Blue Origin has put people into space for a few seconds.   A previous flight got a more positive response because it carried 90-year-old actor William Shatner – who has been roaming space on both the big and small screens for decades.  Like a magic trick, however, the Bezos’ stunt is not as impressive a second time.

Passenger King got indignant over folks referring to the trip as a “ride.”  Essentially, it was a colossal carnival ride with a huge ticket price.  The entire experience – from take off to landing was 11 minutes – about the time it takes to boil a small pot of water.  They did not even go around the block in an orbit.

Contrast this to Musk’s SpaceX program that has that flown scores of real missions into space – including launching thousands of communications and military satellites … shuttling real astronauts to and from the space station … returning two stranded astronauts that Boeing sent to the space station but could not retrieve … and developing rockets for a future mission to Mars.  Musk’s Starlink communication system will ultimately put more than 12,000 satellites in orbit.  And this is only his part-time job.

A few rich celebrities want us to take an 11 minute suborbital flight as a serious space mission – and refer to them as “astronauts.”   Really??

The guest list photo says it all.  It looks like a poster for an upcoming sci-fi movie. Seven sexy women in body shaping jump suits.  These gals did not even need space suits, and throughout the trip, they were seated comfortably in the equivalency of a small lounge.  The brevity of the flight, the modest so-called “training” they received, and the lack of any useful purpose were at the core of criticisms — and belie the claims of relevancy.

Part of the backlash was fueled by attempts to pump up the Blue Origin flight as having some larger purpose and benefits for space exploration, women’s empowerment and all of humanity. 

There is nothing wrong with a bunch of good looking rich women taking a joyride to the edge of space, with a terrific view of the world.  Rather than an example of space exploration and female empowerment, however, it was more an example of the benefits and privileges of wealth and celebrity. 

(Several years ago, I celebrated my 75^th birthday with a similar – but more modest — adventure by jumping out of an airplane at 14,000 feet.  Not as impressive – and not as expensive.  It was a personal thrill ride. Nothing more.)

Wendy’s fast food enterprise mocked Katy Perry’s kissing the ground upon landing with her song “I Kissed a Girl” by tweeting on X “I Kissed the Ground and I liked it” and asked, “Can we send her back?”

Some of the criticism – including from actress/filmmaker Olivia Wilde and actress/model Emily Ratajkowski — centered on the expense and environmental impact of such meaningless showmanship.  Not sure what the carbon footprint was, but the women got a bargain price.  The estimated cost of a Blue Origin flight runs between $300,000 and $1 million per seat.

So …what next for Blue Origin?  An all trans passenger list?  A special people-of-color crew?  How about an all billionaire grouping?  A congressional flight?  If those seem ridiculous, you might want to take a fresh look at Jeff Bezos latest reality show, “Women in Space!!”. Can the naked version be far behind?

So, there ‘tis.