On Monday, a carefully curated group of women briefly escaped Earth’s atmosphere, eliciting widespread criticism about their 11-minute space jaunt. Olivia Munn slammed Blue Origin’s all-female flight as “gluttonous” and Emily Ratjakowski called the mission “endtimes shit”; meanwhile, Olivia Wilde wrote on her Instagram Stories that a “billion dollars bought some good memes, I guess.”
But it seems like the gals onboard, who are now safely back atop the Earth’s crust, are intent on defending their voyage. Also, they reeeally want us all to go to space.
On Monday, Lauren Sánchez — who is famously engaged to Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos — told People she gets “really fired up” about the criticism. “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,” Sánchez said. “They love their work and they love the mission and it’s a big deal for them.” She went on, “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 really eye-opening.’”
A few days later, Gayle King extended a similar invitation. In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, she defended Bezos, saying he was “trying to make things better here on Earth” by taking “the waste here and [figuring] out a way to put it in space to make our planet cleaner.”
“Number two, have you been?” King continued. “If you’ve been, and you still feel that way after you come back, please let’s have a conversation.”
You know what? I haven’t! Neither, presumably, have most of the Earth-dwellers who’ve been less than impressed by the star-studded flight.
The same day, King doubled down on her space recommendation in an interview with Extra.“Have y’all been to space?” she asked. “Go to space, or go to Blue Origin, and see what they do and how they do, and then come back and say this is a terrible thing,” she said. King did acknowledge that it is “expensive” to go to space, but vaguely suggested that it would be cheaper “if you get enough people who are interested.” She added, “I know there are cranky Yankees, I know there are some haters, but I’m not going to let people steal my joy and steal the joy of what we did or what we accomplished that day.”
She certainly isn’t. King is really taking the public’s response in stride — she added that “normally it’s not good to be a meme, but I actually think it’s kind of funny.” At least we agree on something!
