Lauren Sánchez is really ticked off that some people have criticized her pointless trip to spend a few minutes on the edge of space.
Sánchez, the fiancée of Blue Origin billionaire Jeff Bezos, defended the journey after it was slammed as “gluttonous,” “beyond parody,” and “fake af” by a flurry of unimpressed celebrities.
Back on solid ground on Monday morning Sánchez was asked by People to respond to the criticism. “I get really fired up,” she said.
She nodded to the Blue Origin employees who “put their heart and soul” into their work, and added: “They love their work and they love the mission and it’s a big deal for them.”
“So when we hear comments like that, I just say, ‘Trust me. Come with me. I’ll show you what this is about, and it’s, it’s really eye-opening,‘” she continued.
Sánchez was joined on the New Shepard flight by pop singer Katy Perry, CBS News anchor Gayle King, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, movie producer Kerianne Flynn, and activist Amanda Nguyen. The trip—watched from the ground by some Kardashians and a weeping Oprah Winfrey—was bankrolled by Beozs.
When New Shepard reached an altitude of around 62 miles it briefly crossed the widely-recognized boundary of space called the Kármán line, allowing the crew to experience three or four minutes of weightlessness. Then mission NS-31 started its descent to solid ground—touching down in West Texas 10 minutes and 21 seconds after launching, according to Blue Origin figures.
Back on Earth, Perry kissed the ground, King dropped to her knees, and an overexcited Bezos tumbled onto the sand.
Perry had barely finished wiping the Texas desert off her lips as detractors rushed to add their two cents on the whole spectacle—contentiously billed as the “first all-female spaceflight.”
King was also aware of the noise around the project. “Anybody that’s criticizing it doesn’t really understand what is happening here,” she told People.
“We can all speak to the response we’re getting from young women, from young girls about what this represents,” added the veteran journalist.
Plenty of dissent was on offer pre-flight, too. Actress Olivia Munn led the chorus of boos as she railed against the whole operation almost two weeks ago, calling it “gluttonous.”
The point of space exploration is to “further our knowledge and to help mankind,” Munn argued during an appearance on NBC’s Today earlier this month. “What are they gonna do up there that has made it better for us down here?”
The condemnation appeared to have metastasized after the New Shepard capsule thudded down in the desert Monday. Model Emily Ratajkowski said the operation was damaging “Mother Earth,” firing shots at Amazon.
“That space mission this morning? That’s endtime s–t. Like, this is beyond parody,” Ratajkowski said on TikTok.
“That you care about Mother Earth and it’s about Mother Earth, and you’re going up in a spaceship that is built and paid for by a company that’s singlehandedly destroying the planet?”
Blogger and conservative pundit Meghan McCain likened the whole spectacle to a Black Mirror episode.
“Katy Perry and Gayle King being launched into space while publicly saying they are bringing the ‘ass back in astronauts’ and ‘makeup/glam is important for the mission’ is some kind of black mirror parody and you can’t convince me otherwise,” she wrote on X.
Comedian Amy Schumer also took a dig on Instagram. “Guys, last second, they added me to space, and I’m going to space,” she said on launch day.
Referencing some of the crew bringing personal items on the flight, she held up a toy and added: “I’m bringing this thing. It has no meaning to me, but it was in my bag, and I was on the Subway, and I got the text, and they were like, ‘Do you want to go to space?’ so I’m going to space.”
Olivia Wilde also had a swipe. “Billion dollars bought some good memes I guess,” the actress wrote on Instagram, sharing an image of Katy Perry kissing the earth after the short flight.
Controversial rapper Azealia Banks said the mission was straight-up faked. “I don’t think they even went to space that s–t was fake af. How they back already it’s been like 40 mins,” she wrote on X.
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