The Flight for Feminism: An Attempt at Empowering Women in Aeronautics

Since 1963, when women first set sail on our cosmic ocean, there have been female engineers, scientists, and astronauts who have made daring and dire contributions to aeronautics and space exploration. Sally Ride, Kathryn Sullivan, and Suni Williams are just some of the inspiring astronauts that have worked hard to make their names known among their male counterparts in the space industry and have proven to young girls that they too, belong in science.

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Blue Origin, and his fiance Lauren Sanchez wanted to be a part of inspiring girls and women to pursue the STEM fields and quite literally shoot for the stars by showcasing more women in space. Sanchez chose a crew of women to do so: Katy Perry, Gayle King, Kerianne Flynn, Aisha Bowe, and Amanda Nguyen.

When this eclectic group of space tourists was announced, eyebrows were raised and questioned the women chosen for the eleven minute low orbit flight. Many were confused why the pop princess Perry, TV personality King, and film producer Kerianne Flynn joined Sanchez on the flight, as they had no education or credentials to offer them a ticket to fly. In a time where political turmoil has impacted funding towards science education and exploration, many viewed these crew members’ participation as unfair, undeserving, and inconsiderate. While the crew aimed to encourage girls to pursue careers in STEM, this may not be accessible for them, as the Trump administration proposes extreme budget cuts to the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Managing to escape the criticism, Aisha Bowe and Amanda Nguyen were encouraged to fly on Blue Origin’s NS-31, as they were the only two women with the education and career in aerospace and science that warranted their trip to the stars. Many stated that the entire crew should have consisted of women with degrees in aerospace engineering like Bowe, or women who have fought against sexual harrassment to have a place in the male dominated field, like Nguyen.

Many believe that not only do girls need to see female representation in space flights, but they must see representation in the stages of life before space flights, working hard in high school calculus, pursuing a physics degree in undergraduate school, getting a Ph.D. in STEM. Girls who want to pursue a STEM career must see women like Bowe and Nguyen who have gone through what they have, and see them flourish in their careers.

While the six space tourists took off on April 14th to the Karman line, the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space, controversy and debate concerning the flight immersed back on the ground. People were curious to see how the women would spend their brief eleven minutes above earth in zero gravity space, but when footage was released from the flight, not many were impressed.

The main points of criticism were not primarily towards what the women did while in space, besides the jokes made of Perry holding a daisy to the camera, but rather the cadence and the claims made by the “astronauts” at their point of return back on planet Earth.

As soon as Perry walked out of the space capsule, opened by Bezos, she immediately bent down and kissed the ground. A few minutes later, she explained in an interview how she felt connected to love, power, and most importantly, our wonderful world.

Perry told Blue Origin reporter, “I feel super connected to love,” and that the experience showed her that “you never know how much love is inside of you, how much love there is to give, and how loved you are until the day you launch”. Gayle King also reported that while in space, Perry sang “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong. When asked why she chose that song, she replied, “It’s not about me, it’s not about singing my songs. It’s about making space for future women and taking up space and belonging”. While appreciating her acknowledgement of paving the way for women in STEM, many felt that her cadence was dramatic and out of touch, implying that you can only feel how loved you are until you have millions of dollars to spend on going to space.

Using celebrities in an attempt to promote space and curiosity for the cosmos is not new, from Bill Nye to Neil Degrasse Tyson, there have been science figures in entertainment and media that have encouraged the public spanning multitudes of generations to shoot for the stars. These science communicators have relied on charisma, warmth, and creativity to make complex, scientific ideas accessible to those of all ages, however when we see this attempted to be done with those with little to no scientific background, the message gets murky. Undoubtedly, Katy Perry and Gayle King have an influence on girls and women, but what exactly is the message they are trying to send? The message that going to space means you feel loved?

The issue lies within the depth and meaning of the women’s message as they ventured on this journey and their witness upon return. While Perry spoke of love, wonder, inspiration, there was no discussion surrounding the scientific phenomena she experienced, such as floating in zero gravity space, how the spacecraft work, or what science was being conducted, if any.

In an interview with AP News Entertainment prior to lift off, Perry expressed her enthusiasm for “STEM” and discussed how she took the initiative to educate herself. She told AP News, “I’m really excited about the engineering of it all, I’m excited to learn more about STEM and just the math about what it takes to accomplish this type of thing.” Comments in response on social media include:

“I thought ‘California Girls’ was slightly making fun of vapid valley girls with subtext, but it seems she devoutly believes every lyric without any hint of sarcasm.”

“This is genuinely disrespectful to all the women who dedicated their lives to STEM.”

“There are so many people who already know about STEM who are sitting at home with their doctorates wishing they had this opportunity.”

While ruthless, the criticism was reasonable. Those who do hold doctorates raised eyebrows at her statements of learning about the “STEM and math about what it takes”, as this kind of math requires knowledge in high level calculus, differential equations, and linear algebra mainly taught in graduate school. She continued on about her nightly readings of Cosmos by Carl Sagan and string theory, one of the most complicated topics in physics that discusses complexities in quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, and general relativity. To top it off, she named her three favorite sciences: “I’ve always been interested in astrophysics and interested in astronomy and astrology”. A general conclusion made by the working class determined that she did not, in fact, know the STEM of what it takes, and was not as familiar with the cosmos as she made herself appear to be.

The disconnect of these women and their involvement of true dedication to STEM leads to the larger question, what was the goal of this mission? Was it actually meant to inspire? Or was this just a joy ride for those who could afford it? If Bezos and Sanchez truly wanted to inspire and educate girls, they could have taken further steps to do so. These educational touchpoints could include Q&A sessions with aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe and bioastronautics researcher Amanda Nguyen, behind the scenes looks at features and technology of the NS-31 spacecraft, or the physics governing the zero gravity spaceflight.

Instead of focusing the flight on science education and communication, this mission opted towards optics, images of celebrity women hugging, making statements of love and belonging, and high emotion. While this may have resonated with some, a girl in her high school physics class doubting whether she belongs in STEM may not have benefited much from this mission.

Rather than benefiting high school girls, it benefited the Hollywood headlines. In a time where science research, careers, and exploration are threatened and minimized by government proposals, genuine representation and education matters.

If we aim to inspire the future generations of scientists, engineers, and mathematicians, and teach them that the sky isn’t the limit, we must offer them more than just stardust and symbolism, we must give them the access, education, and tools to turn their dreams into discoveries.