The Pop Corporation

Once, space travel was amazing. The adventure of the human spirit, going where no person had ever been before! We did it to learn, for science, for some kind of indomitable wanderlust and… now? Yuck.

See, a bunch of billionaires have got their own space race going on, and those billionaires aren’t cool and have weird faces, and it sure looks like they’re dropping the heavy hint that they’re going to go and live on Mars and those who can’t afford the ticket will be left on a decimated planet – the damage hastened by the very rockets we’re apparently supposed to cheer on.

The latest apparent public relations test was putting an all-female crew on a rocket, which would go to kinda-space for ten minutes, including for some reason, Katy Perry and Oprah’s friend Gayle. Any criticism, and you just don’t get it, it seems. It’s all women! That’s empowering, right?

It might be, but this trip comes at a time when thousands of women are getting their government jobs cut from under them by the hatchet approach from the abysmal DOGE team assembled by Musk and Trump and, has been a resolute PR disaster for America’s MAGA movement. And women who work for literal NASA are getting fired and their bios removed from Twitter.

You might think it boring and wish people would stop talking about end-stage capitalism, and all that, but it is difficult to avoid the topic of wealth and taxation in the States, when Bezos pays next to nothing, and uses his wealth to send a popstar to space, when that money could have been used to give American citizens debt-free healthcare, or something useful.

A vanity space flight is not resonating with a number of people who are increasingly worried about their already shaky future. Are regular, working people supposed to cheer on people getting to go to space that seemingly accomplishes nothing? On a trip that has a disproportionately awful impact on the planet we’re all going to be stuck with while they float around for a bit?

Katy Perry in particular is having one of the worst press runs of a generation, working with people accused of all manner of terrible things to women, while singing about women’s empowerment, and now, happily siding with Jeff Bezos and his mid-life crisis girlfriend.

Emily Ratajkowski is reading the room better, which tells you something. She was “disgusted” by the space flight, calling it “end time shit… like, this is beyond parody.” She added; “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 singlehandedly destroying the planet?”

It isn’t to say that the people behind this flight didn’t at least preempt some of this criticism. It wasn’t just celebrities on this flight. Joining Perry, Bezos’ girlfriend, CBS host Gayle King, and Lauren Sanchez were Amanda Nguyen (a civil rights activist, and former NASA intern) Kerianne Flynn (film producer) and Aisha Bowe (former Nasa rocket scientist). Sure, the vague idea of an all-woman crew is a decent one, and sure, you can frame it as ‘feminist’ if you want, heralding a thing that isn’t blokey and stuffy like they normally are, but this whole thing reeks of folly that doesn’t feel like one giant leap for womankind.

For starters, each passenger paid $150,000 each for the privilege.

Bezos’ gal, Sanchez, has her views about the critcism: “I get really fired up. I would love to have them 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. They love their work and they love the mission and it’s a big deal for them.”

“So when we hear comments like that, I just say, ‘Trust me. Come with me. I’ll show you what this is about’, and it’s, it’s really eye-opening.”

Maybe, the criticisms wouldn’t be quite so prevalent if those same scientists were the ones on the flight, rather than a seemingly random selection of B-listers who bought their place on Blue Origin. Sadly, it looks like a billionaire’s girlfriend wanted to do a bottomless brunch in space with some new friends she’d bought.

And if this was really about the betterment of people, then why did all of the participants in this thing wearing astronaut suits that were custom-made by Monse, designed by cofounders Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim (who are also the creative directors of Oscar de la Renta), who previously worked with Sanchez before for events such at the Met Gala?

Where space travel is usually sartorially pragmatic, these jumpsuits are – according to Sanchez – “elegant but they also bring a little spice to space” and were designed with the female body in mind. Accentuating everyone’s figure, to y’know, help all of humankind.

Perry, again, making the whole thing tiring, stating; “we’re putting the ‘ass’ in astronaut.”

It may seem like sour grapes, it may seem like awful virtue signalling, but the wealthy people of the world really do seem to be having their Marie Antoinette moment, who of course, was accused of being profligate, of being promiscuous with it, and being referred to as Madame Déficit as she lived lavishly during France’s financial crisis.

If Antoinette became a symbol of conservatism, the church, outlandish wealth and fashion, and of course the quintessential representative of class conflict, then these days of the United States and their frivolous travels into space; if history repeats itself, we could be witnesses even more turbulence from our cousins Stateside, who are wondering where their retirement money is going.

The only difference this time, is that the French weren’t watching the very planet they live on, burn.