Did we react in the same negative way to members of the previous 10 crew flights by Blue Origin? Many of them were men and/or wealthy and/or celebrities.

I am no fan of Bezos, but a competitive alternative to SpaceX is a good thing.

Let's aim our ire at the hundreds of SpaceX flights that litter our skies with satellites and that pollute our environment, both during launch and during reentry into the atmosphere.

And at the destruction of NASA, NOAA and HHS.

Let's sweat the big stuff.

2/n

@AkaSci

Women are getting fired from NASA, women's contributions are being erased, and Bezos sending the Kardashians into space just doesn't sit right.

The reaction isn't visceral.

@AkaSci I'm intrigued that anyone expected it to be anything other than a joyride for a bunch of wealthy women and a publicity stunt for Blue Origin.

We see women exploited every day for profit in the media, why is space travel required to be politically correct?

@AkaSci It's a stunt to promote space tourism to millionaires. While many Americans don't even have health care, space tourism is a thing.

Nothing more clearly demonstrates that we, as a society, have the resources to take care of everyone but choose not to than space tourism. It's such a gross waste of resources.

@AkaSci Cynical? Hah. You need to ask women in STEM about this. You need to ask them what kinds of crap they have had to fight back in order to be taken seriously in their fields.

This was not a serious venture. It was influencer tourism which only encourages the bullshit sexism against women in STEM.

@AkaSci I think the round criticism of the flight is correct - this isn't a win for women by any stretch of the imagination. Sanchéz piled some big names into her (male) fiancé's suborbital joyride in custom form-fitting jumpsuits (where was Shatner's?) and together they produced a media spectacle focused largely around their looks.

I think space tourism for the super-rich is a waste of our meagre resources at the best of times, but this is cynical in its vacuousness. Each if the passengers is perfectly accomplished in her own right, but they take the opportunity to talk about astrology, skydiving to test hairdos and zero-G lashes. Shepard's daughter flew on an earlier flight and thoughtfully contrasted her experience to her father's, Shatner spoke of grief.

What does hairstyle have to do with an overview effect? What did anyone get out of this, beyond Content™️, publicity for the passengers and another kiloton of carbon in the atmosphere? The message I see is that women can do anything, if they are successful popstars, marrying one of the richest men in the world and most importantly obsessed with physical appearance. I don't see anything to be positive about.

@AkaSci Fair, but I’m just as negative regarding a crew of all male tech-bro “astronauts” going to “space”.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of awesome female role models who are currently being fired and erased from NASA and other agencies. Let’s do photoshoots and bio-blurbs about them instead. Sexy sci-fi uniforms and penis-rockets strictly optional.