Gayle King had strong comments for those who criticized her Blue Origin trip.
“Space is not an either/or, but a both/and, and doing anything in space does not imply that you are taking something away from Earth. And what you’re doing in space is attempting to improve things here on Earth,” King said on CBS Mornings on Tuesday, April 15, of the mission that saw her and the first all-female crew enter orbit.
“What Blue Origin wants to do is take this trash and figure out how to send it into space to help clean up our planet. Jeff Bezos has many ideas, and the individuals who work there are really motivated to make the world a better place. “That’s number one,” the host said.
“There was nothing frivolous about what we do,” King remarked in response to the flight’s critics. “I’m quite upset and hurt by this criticism. And I also ask, what is it doing to encourage other women and young girls? Please do not overlook that. I’ve had so many ladies and young girls, as well as males, come out to me. Men also comment, ‘Wow, I never imagined I could accomplish that, but I see you doing it at this time of your life’.”
On Monday, April 14, King told PEOPLE that “anybody that’s criticizing it doesn’t really understand what is happening here.”
On Monday, Blue Origin flew to the threshold of outer space for around 11 minutes. The mission included the company’s first all-female flying crew, including Katy Perry, rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, bioastronautics research scientist Amanda Nguyen, philanthropist Lauren Sanchez, and film producer Kerianne Flynn. Blue Origin, created in 2000, is owned by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who is Sanchez’s fiancé.
Blue Origin invites anybody to secure a place on their spaceship, but most must pay a “fully refundable deposit” of $150,000. According to The New York Times, the business sold its first ticket at auction for $28 million in 2021. It is unclear which passengers on the Blue Origin NS-31 flight were paying customers and which were guests who flew for free.
Many of the critiques leveled at Blue Origin and the privatization of space travel revolved around the financial expenses of production and passenger tickets, as well as the purported excessive carbon emissions that harm the Earth’s ailing ecosystem. Olivia Munn loudly condemned the trip on an April 3 broadcast of Today with Jenna & Friends, prior to the launch.
“What is the point?” Is it significant that you two are going on a ride? “I think it’s a little gluttonous,” she explained. “We intended space exploration to further our understanding and benefit humanity.” What are they going to do up there to make things better for us down here?
Olivia Wilde shared Munn’s comments in an Instagram Story post on Monday. The actress and director retweeted an image from X that showed Perry kissing the earth after getting off the New Shepherd rocket. The two photographs were accompanied by the words, “Getting off a commercial flight in 2025 #BlueOrigin.”
Wilde captioned the meme: “Billions of dollars bought some good memes, I guess.”
Emily Ratajkowski later uploaded a TikTok post critical of the launch, including Perry’s comments.
@emrata♬ original sound – Emrata
“Saying that you care about Mother Earth, and it’s about Mother Earth, and going up in a spaceship that is built and paid for by a company that’s single-handedly destroying the planet?” demanded the model. “Look at the state of the world, and think about how many resources went into putting these women into space, and for what?”
Bezos has failed to address the current controversy openly surrounding the Blue Origin trip. Before taking off, he addressed the passengers, “When you return, I can’t wait to hear how it has changed you. I adore you all. See you shortly. Godspeed,” according to NBC.