Blue Origin’s All-Female Flight: Milestone Or Marketing?

Photo Credit: Blue Origin

On April 14, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin completed NS-31, the space company’s 11th successful space flight with humans on board. The NS-31 crew was composed entirely of women — a first for the company — including many notable celebrities. Passengers included singer Katy Perry, CBS Mornings host Gayle King, and Jeff Bezos’ fiancée, Lauren Sanchez. 

The spaceship was launched 100 km in altitude, reaching the Karman line, the internationally recognized boundary of Space and Earth’s atmosphere. 

According to NASA statistics, 61 of 360 astronauts the agency has recruited since 1959, or about 17 per cent, are women. The all-female crew was intended to inspire more women to enter both the fields of astronomy and STEM. 

Leading up to the flight, NS-31 was promoted as a big step for feminism. Perry told Elle magazine that she wanted to “show [her daughter] that any type of person can reach their dreams—no matter your background, your ethnicity, your economic situation, or your education level.”

However, the flight’s high-profile status raised concerns from the public and sparked dialogue regarding the sincerity of the feminist message. Blue Origin declined to share how much a seat in the plane cost the flyers, and speculation surrounding the steep prices has risen. 

Spokesperson Bill Kircos told CNN that some passengers on the flight were flying free of charge, while others paid for the space flight. In 2021, Blue Origin auctioned off a seat on its first crewed flight for $28 million, according to The New York Times.

Footage of Perry singing mid-flight further fueled online backlash, with many arguing that it undermined the mission’s supposed goals. Some commentators argued that celebrities were undeserving of their seats, since they overshadowed those with qualified scientific backgrounds. Of the six crewmembers, only Amanda Nguyen and Aisha Bowe have backgrounds in aerospace technology.

Writing for The Guardian, Moira Donegan criticized the flight as “a kind of perverse funeral for America that once enabled both scientific advancement and feminist progress,” arguing that the mission undermined serious efforts toward equality in STEM by reducing it to celebrity publicity. 

Blue Origin has since launched another space flight on May 25, with six people aboard — four men and two women — including some with science and engineering backgrounds.