On April 14, 2025, pop star Katy Perry went to space on a brief 11-minute journey aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket, joining an all-female crew that included Lauren Sánchez, Gayle King, Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyen and Kerrianne Flynn. Although none were astronauts, Bowe is an ex-rocket scientist and therefore only the closest to being remotely qualified for this $22 million trip. The trip was promoted as a milestone for female empowerment. Still, rightly so, it has been met with widespread criticism, highlighting concerns about environmental impact, elitism, and the authenticity of its messaging.
The spectacle of “space feminism”
“Space feminism” sounds revolutionary, but it translates to rich female figures in “sexy” flight suits flying above the stratosphere for less time than it would take them to do something truly influential. And, let’s be honest, how ‘feminist’ can it truly be when the same system that enabled this spaceflight is built on labour exploitation and wealth inequality? Empowerment becomes a performance when it is funded by a billionaire who is known for brutal working conditions, amongst many other immoralities.
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin’s NS-31 mission was marketed as a milestone for women. The ‘first’ all-female spaceflight since 1963. A new frontier for inclusion! But we have female astronauts all around the world, waiting for their chance to deploy into space, and we have female scientists working around the clock to make sure space missions can happen. If the mission was to empower women, the money should have been funnelled into upholding education for women and girls and into the community of women in STEM.
What we saw wasn’t feminist advancement; it was a spectacle. A celestial girlboss moment, dressed up in custom suits, funded by a male billionaire. For 11 minutes, a group of accomplished women floated above Earth. And when they came down, nothing fundamental changed.
“Space feminism,” like its terrestrial sister, corporate feminism, is about optics over substance. It prioritises headlines and hashtags over hard questions, such as: who gets to access space? Who benefits from these missions? What does it mean to call something feminist when it’s rooted in vast economic inequality and environmental disregard?
This wasn’t the same as Sally Ride and Valentina Tereshkova being the first women in space, and actually breaking access barriers in STEM for women. This was a paid experience for celebrity passengers that offered no new data, no research, no furtherance of our understanding of space and no benefit to anyone.
Environmental concerns and elitism
The environmental impact of private space tourism falls heavily on communities least responsible for climate change. Women in the Global South primarily bear the brunt of environmental degradation, and every year, women have to walk further for water whilst the rich will continue to burn tonnes of fossil fuels for the hell of it. A single space tourism flight produces more carbon emissions than most people in developing nations generate in their lifetimes. It is hard to call any of this empowerment when it is clearly climate violence.
This 11-minute joyride was a high carbon, high emission status symbol. Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket runs on liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, and while its emissions are less polluting than traditional kerosene rockets, the environmental toll is far from zero. Each launch emits tonnes of water vapour and nitrogen oxides directly into the atmosphere, where the warming effect is amplified and long-lasting. If we multiply that by the growing trend of billionaire-backed space tourism, it starts to look less like innovation and more like indulgence.
Ironically, the message Katy Perry seemed to take from this Uber into space is one of environmental activism. Once the group landed back on Earth, Perry kissed the ground in a display of affection for “mother earth”. Previously, she had stated that this trip is about “this wonderful world that we see out there and appreciating it. This is all for the benefit of Earth”.
While Perry and crew floated above us, drought continued across various African countries, a cyclone ripped through Bangladesh and flash flooding affected thousands in Romania. This is the dystopia we are living in, where we are prioritising space selfies over sustainability.
Critics like actress Olivia Munn called the mission “gluttonous”, and model Emily Ratajkowski went further, pointing out the irony of billionaires destroying the planet from above while pretending to care about the people on it. Even fast food chains like Wendy’s piled on with sarcastic tweets, which shows that not many people cared for this spectacle of wealth.
Putting aside emissions for a second, there is also the cost. With each seat estimated between $500,000 and $1.25 million, these recreational trips reinforce the idea that space is a new playground for the elite. While underfunded schools struggle to keep STEM programmes alive and female scientists around the world face systemic barriers to entry, Katy Perry gets to orbit Earth for less than the length of one of her concerts.
Space tourism is exclusive, extractive, and performative. And unless we start asking who these missions are really for, we’ll keep mistaking access to altitude for actual progress.
False feminism in a war-making nation
During a time of extreme political turmoil around the world, this mission feels like a distraction and a sort of band-aid to hide violence against women. The U.S. continues to pour billions into military support, weapons sales, and geopolitical strategies that devastate civilian populations. The same country that has supported this launch is also funding genocide in Congo, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan and Congo. Over half of Palestinians who have been killed since October 2023 are women and children, and 36 out of 224 Israeli airstrikes within three weeks exclusively killed women and children.
Feminism is anti-imperialist by necessity. You cannot claim to advance women’s rights while funding bombs that kill women and children. True feminism demands that we recognise the suffering of women everywhere, not just the achievements of the privileged few. True feminism isn’t about who gets to have a space selfie. It is about making sure we can live and thrive here on Earth, safely, without the threat of violence 24/7 and without having to fight for the same rights as our white male counterparts are handed. No amount of representation can make this kind of mission feminist, and to frame it as a triumph for women’s empowerment while that same nation enables the death of women elsewhere is an insult.
Empowerment has become about how many wealthy women can join wealthy men in consuming exclusive experiences and destroying the planet. Rather than being measured by how effectively we dismantle systems that create such vast disparities in the first place. We should direct our attention and resources toward those working to advance women’s rights through systemic change.
A pop star in space with professionally styled hair, custom-designed “feminine” space gear, and perfect photo opportunities is a potent symbol of how feminism has been commercialised and depoliticised, reduced from a revolutionary movement to a marketing strategy.
We must ask questions about what feminism means in practice, not just in orchestrated spectacles. Advancements cannot be purchased for millions of dollars; they have to be built through sustained collective action focused on dismantling structures that maintain inequality. We should not settle for a millionaire’s triumph within a violent. Until our definition of progress includes the liberation of all women, especially those living under occupation, in poverty, or on the front lines of climate change, we will continue to mistake spectacle for empowerment.
