Emily Ratajkowski has criticized Blue Origin for sending a famous crew into space.
The Blue Origin rocket made the trip on Monday with its all-female team, which included Katy Perry, Lauren Sánchez, Gayle King, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, and film producer Kerianne Flynn. The craft flew through space for around four minutes before floating back down to Earth, with the entire journey taking a little over 10 minutes.
Hours later, Ratajkowski shared her thoughts about the mission in a TikTok video, criticizing the praise and support Blue Origin has received for this trip.
“That space mission this morning, that’s end time s***. Like this is beyond parody,” she said. “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 single-handedly destroying the planet?”
“Look at the state of the world. Think about how many resources went into putting these women into space,” she continued. “For what? For what? What was the marketing there? I’m disgusted, literally.”
The model shared a follow-up video on the topic on Tuesday, sharing her belief that the mission is “confusing to people,” since it looks like “progress” to see women of color in science and political spaces, which they haven’t been a part of before.
However, she expressed that the trip was not progress, since it was done for “space tourism” and organized by billionaire Jeff Bezos, who’s engaged to Sánchez.
“It just speaks to the fact that we are absolutely living in an oligarchy where there’s a very small group of people who are interested in going to space for the sake of getting a new lease on life,” Ratajkowski said. “While most of the people on planet Earth are worried about paying rent or having dinner for their kids.”
It’s not clear how much money was spent on the recent Blue Origin flight, or how much it cost to build the space shuttle for the trip. However, it likely cost a pretty penny to be on the shuttle, since the first seat on the New Shepard vehicle into space was sold for $28 million in 2021.
Many other celebrities have criticized the recent Blue Origin trip. On Monday, actor Olivia Wilde posted a viral meme of Perry kissing the ground after the spaceship landed back on Earth.
“Billion dollars bought some good memes I guess,” the director wrote on her Instagram Story, while sharing the meme.
Earlier this month, Olivia Munn shared her feelings about the trip, which were similar to Ratajkowski's. While co-hosting an episode of Today With Jenna and Friends, she said “there are so many other things that are so important in the world right now,” other than the Blue Origin mission.
“What are you guys gonna do up in space? What are you doing up there?” Munn asked. “If you wanna go to space, why do you need to tell us about it, you know? It’s just like, go up there, have a good time, come on down.”
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During a press conference after the trip on Monday, Sánchez and King responded to the backlash.
“I feel anybody that’s criticizing doesn’t really understand what’s happening here,” King said. “We’ve all heard it. We were even all talking about that.”
She then encouraged critics to do a “deep dive” into what the flight means to so many people. “We can all speak to the response we're getting from young women from young girls about what this represents,” she added. “This is really a lot of work, what went into getting us up and getting us down.”
Sánchez chimed in to share her thoughts about the criticism, adding: “I get really fired up, a little bit on this.”
“I would love to have [critics] come to Blue Origin and see the thousands of employees that don't just work here but they put their heart and soul into this vehicle,” she said. “They love their work and they love the mission and it's a big deal for them.”
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