Celebrity Space Travel and its Controversies
By Hannah Kline and Anna Mcclellan
It is important to discuss the symbolism, and social implications of the Blue Origin trip to space that took place on 14 April 2025. The passengers aboard the aircraft included an activist (Amanda Nguyễn), singer (Katy Perry), entrepreneur (Aisha Bowe), producer (Kerianne Flynn), and journalist (Lauren Sánchez, fiancée to Jeff Bezos, who founded Blue Origin). While some people are pointing towards the importance of having an all-female space mission, others have critiqued it for being an unnecessary waste of space technology that has been wrongly handed to billionaires and those with a close proximity to power. Prominent figures have critiqued the women for being “gluttonous,” and there is a general sentiment that the women did not deserve the experience. This controversy raises questions about space travel in general and who benefits from it.
It is particularly easy to criticise space travel when it is being undertaken by hugely wealthy people who have very little interest or knowledge about the science of space. However, the critiques of environmental pollution and the extensive use of resources for space travel can be applied to the industry in general. There is a difference between space tourism—when someone travels into space purely for their own enjoyment—and missions into space for research purposes. However, both have a poor effect on the environment. To sustain a human in space, the global warming impacts are found to be between 1500 and 3500 kilograms of carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO2-eq)1 per hour. This means that space travellers can have a global warming impact between 2000 and 4600 global citizen equivalents per hour. Global citizen equivalent refers to an estimate of an average individual’s rate of emissions. In this, the hourly emissions generated as a result of sustaining a space traveller can amount to more than 2000 times those of an average individual.
In 2024, America spent $79.7 billion on its space programmes. This is the highest expenditure for space travel globally, and it raises questions about why so much money is going into a project that is so environmentally devastating.
Blue Origin’s main objective seems to be making space exploration accessible to all, rather than just to trained astronauts—which is why the idea of an all-female team consisting of celebrities, journalists, and more, came into the picture. While there is so much focus on the aspect of who went on this mission, there is still the remaining question: why was this mission necessary in the first place? What was the real purpose of this event? We should first explore where the idea came from. Lauren Sánchez is not only an aviation expert, but also an award-winning journalist and the founder of Black Ops aviation, a female-owned aerial film production company. A Blue Origin press release stated that Sánchez was “honoured to lead a team of explorers on a mission that will challenge their perspectives of earth, empower them, and create lasting impact that will inspire generations to come.”
The Blue Origin trip made global headlines. It emphasised the importance of broadening spaceflight capabilities as well as how critical it is to have female representation in the aerospace field and to support those women. The actual flight only took ten minutes, and they exceeded 62 miles above the earth's surface. After the crew has returned safely to earth's surface, the real reason for the expedition was revealed. The experience was meant to empower the team and, as Katy Perry said, “[make] space for future women.” It was revealed that, collectively, the women experienced an epiphany of how much better we as a human race need to do for our planet.
CO₂-eq is used in order to standardise the measurement of various greenhouse gases, using carbon dioxide, arguably the “most important man-made greenhouse gas,” as the standard.