It’s the final countdown, as uber rich wallflowers Lauren Sanchez and Katy Perry gear up for their all-female space flight next week there’s been plenty of hot air ahead of lift-off.
Elle Magazine published an interview last week featuring all six of the women who have secured a seat on Blue Origin‘s New Shepard 31.
Headlined, ‘For all womankind,’ the article elevated this self-indulgent PR stunt, funded by Sanchez’s billionaire fiancé Jeff Bezos, to a feminist mission for the greater good.
Reframing the privilege as pioneering, Elle described the group as a ‘crew,’ even though the rocket on which they will undertake their ‘mission’ will fly itself.
Indeed, much has been made of the fact that this is the first women-only ‘mission’ since Russian astronaut Valentina Tereshkova’s solo space flight in 1963.
But let’s get some perspective.
Elle Magazine published an interview last week featuring all six of the women who have secured a seat on Blue Origin ‘s New Shepard 31.
Headlined, ‘For all womankind,’ the Elle article elevated this self-indulgent PR stunt, funded by Sanchez’s billionaire fiancé Jeff Bezos , to a feminist mission for the greater good.
Tereshkova orbited the Earth 48 times across a three-day space flight and remains the only woman to have ever undertaken such a mission solo.
Seventy-five women have travelled to space since then and all of them were actual astronauts with a purpose, like Kathryn D. Sullivan.
In October 1984, she became the first American woman to perform a spacewalk – three and a half hours long – proving that satellites could be refuelled while in orbit.
So, what advances of knowledge can we expect from Lauren and Katy’s suborbital jaunt?
How best to style out a space suit? Whether false lashes stay attached as you float in the capsule? Or more to the point, how does the lack of gravity effect filler?
With CBS cohost Gayle King, 70, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyne, 33, filmmaker Kieranne Flynn, 57, and NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, 38, buckling up alongside 55-year-old Sanchez and Perry, 40, this is, Elle magazine gushed, ‘the most diverse set of women to ever go into space’ – as if this clutter of celebs represents something other than self-interest.
And speaking of representation…it really matters according to Bowe, whose presence on board will presumably lend a degree of tokenistic gravitas.
‘It’s people seeing themselves,’ she wittered, ‘and being able to show up authentically in their careers in the future.’
Straight from the Meghan Markle book of waffle.
Yes, you too can be in our shoes on a privatized space flight courtesy of Amazon founder Bezos’s aerospace company, Blue Origin – if you bag a billionaire or happen to be handpicked by a celebrity crony.
Make no mistake this space odyssey isn’t about you or me. It’s barely even about the bulk of the ‘crew’ – no, this is about Perry and particularly Sanchez.
In the same magazine interview, she of the perma-flaunted inflated assets, which already defy gravity on a daily basis, used this historic moment to discuss such weighty matters as lash extensions – they will be glued on – and ‘glam.’
Astronauts spend years undertaking gruelling training before they are declared flight-ready. The most difficult thing Sanchez and co will have to negotiate is getting their helmets over their bouffant blow outs ahead of the 11-minute voyage launching from West Texas.
You heard right: 11 mins. Well, Sanchez has still got her wedding of the century this summer in Italy to plan, and those floral centrepieces won’t arrange themselves.
Plus, she likes to be ready for her close-up and we now know prolonged space travel can play havoc with your hair and complexion.
Who can forget 59-year-old NASA astronaut Suni Williams’s banshee appearance after nearly nine months trapped in the International Space Station.
Returning to Earth in March, she looked like a mad-haired troll doll with sandpaper skin – it’s no wonder Sanchez et al don’t plan to hang around.
‘All of these women are storytellers in their own right,’ droned Sanchez of a key criteria for their inclusion in the trip. ‘They’re going to go up to space and be able to spread what they felt in different ways.’
Yes, can’t wait for more musings from Perry who with her usual faux girl power schtick has already declared they’re putting the ‘ass in astronaut.’
Of course, we know the real story here – the one that begins with self-publicity and NEVER ENDS, which perhaps explains why, with tone-deaf timing, the trip hasn’t garnered the universal enthusiasm that the group were no doubt expecting.
Yes, in a world that has been teetering on the brink of World War Three with global trade tensions reaching fever pitch, the exact point of this galactic girl trip and eye watering expense of space tourism is being rightly questioned.
I can’t wait for more musings from Perry who with her usual faux girl power schtick has already declared they’re putting the ‘ass in astronaut.’
Blue Origin’s price structure is opaque but clearly out of reach of mere mortals with one ticket broker rumoured to have paid $2,575,000 for two seats on one recent flight.
‘I know that this is probably not the cool thing to say, but there are so many other things that are so important in the world right now,’ said X-Men Apocalypse star Olivia Munn, 44, who slammed the trip as ‘gluttonous’ on a recent episode of Today with Jenna & Friends
‘What are you going to do up in space? What are you doing up there?’
Good question.
Perry who is still in recovery from a widely derided ‘comeback’ and has a world tour to hawk this year will no doubt be dining out on all this for some time and, if her early proclamations are anything to go by, it doesn’t bode well.
‘Space is going to finally be glam. Let me tell you something. If I could take glam up with me, I would do that,’ she told Elle magazine.
As Olivia Munn posited: ‘Why do you guys need to tell us about it? It’s like just go up there, have a good time, come on down.
‘Also, I know that this is probably obnoxious – but like, it’s so much money to go to space. You know, there’s a lot of people that can’t even afford eggs.’
Quite right.
Perhaps, the inclusion of some space-mad underprivileged children or committed astrophysics college students would have redeemed things but their pockets and social capital weren’t deep enough.
Instead, it’s for the favored few simply swapping one starry orbit for another, looking for the next thrills after the superyachts and submarines.
Sorry, Lauren and Katy I’m with Munn. I can’t share your enthusiasm ladies. Here’s to a safe landing, but with seemingly nothing out of your reach, I doubt you’ll ever be truly down to Earth.
