Gayle King has hit back at critics of this week’s Blue Origin space flight, making a lengthy response about the importance of the trip.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s space tourism company Blue Origin sent TV host King to space on Monday (April 14), in an all-female crew that included pop star Katy Perry; film producer Kerianne Flynn; scientist Amanda Nguyen; entrepreneur Aisha Bowe; and author Lauren Sánchez, who is also Bezos’ fiancée.
The project was condemned as “gluttonous” by actor Olivia Munn, and “beyond parody” by Emily Ratajkowski. Many joined the criticism online, condemning the mission as frivolous and wasteful given the economic and environmental factors involved.
Speaking to Entertainment Tonight, King addressed the criticism and hit back, saying in a video: “I’ve certainly read some of the things online, coming from people that I know, that I like, that I consider friends. This is what I would say to that: space is not an ‘either/or’, it’s a ‘both/and’, and because you do something in space, doesn’t mean you’re taking anything away from Earth”.
Gayle King responds to critics of this week’s all-female Blue Origin space launch. pic.twitter.com/C7hkkpDapJ
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She defended Blue Origin’s aims, saying: “What you’re doing is basically trying to make things better on Earth. What Blue Origin wants to do is take the waste here, find out a way to put it in space to make our planet cleaner. Jeff Bezos has so many ideas, and the people that are working there are really devoted to making our planet a better place. That’s number one”.
The presenter then asked: “Number two: have you been? Have you been? If you’ve been and you still feel that way after you come back, please let’s have a conversation. Number three, please don’t call it ‘a ride’, that is not a friggin’ ride. Whenever a man goes up, you have never said to an astronaut ‘boy what a ride’.
“You know, we duplicated the same trajectory that Alan Sheppard did back in the day, pretty much. Noone called that a ride. It was called ‘a flight’, it was called ‘a journey’, because ‘a ride implies that it was something frivolous, or something that’s light-hearted. There is nothing frivolous about what we did”.
Gayle King ended with expressing her frustration at the reception, saying: “I’m very disappointed, I’m very saddened by it, and I’ll also say this: what it’s doing to inspire other women and young girls, please don’t ignore that”.
Among those criticising the project was fast food chain Wendy’s who jokingly asked if they could “send Katy Perry back to space”. The quip appeared to be subtly endorsed by singer Kesha in a social media post.
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