Tens of thousands of people tuned in to watch a crew of six women, including pop star Katy Perry, and Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos' girlfriend Lauren Sánchez, launch to the outer reaches of the Earth's atmosphere.
The 11-minute mission — which the media breathlessly and erroneously described as the "first all-female space flight" — saw Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket take off from its facility in the West Texas desert, soaring to the very edge of the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary of space.
To call it a revolutionary day in the history of space exploration would be a vast overstatement. While plenty of flattering things can be said about Blue Origin's engineers who developed and built a reliable rocket that has taken dozens of mostly rich people to the edge of space, today's charade was a mostly vacuous media circus.
Basically, it was a bunch of zillionaires enjoying a meaningless thrill ride, put on by the second-richest man in the world. No cutting-edge science, no meaningful victory for womankind — not even the kind of weightlessness experienced by astronauts on board the International Space Station as they orbit the Earth.
The timing in particular was not great, with public sentiment for the ultra-rich — who are currently plundering the federal government, being accused of insider trading on an unprecedented scale, and driving inflation and living costs for average Americans higher — reaching historic lows.
In particularly ironic context, Trump's new administration is forcing NASA to undermine the history of women's spaceflight by taking down web pages about women in leadership and comics about women astronauts.
As such, those who tuned in to watch today's event unfold were left largely unimpressed.
"??Leave them locked in there," one user pleaded in the chat of a livestream hosted by the Associated Press after the crew returned to Earth.
"Intense waste of taxpayer dollars," another wrote.
"Two days of training," one user argued. "I thought one needed to train for going into space for months!!!"
Meanwhile, the one percenters on board the capsule appeared emotionally shaken by their journey into space.
"So I didn't expect to be this emotional, but it's also all the love that was in that capsule and all the heart, and the feelings, and all the things, and like seeing Jeff [Bezos], I went like..." Sánchez said in an interview after stepping out of the capsule and kissing the dirt beneath her feet.
But the chat wasn't seeing it that way.
"??You have no idea what the world is going through… so disconnected," one user wrote.
Perry, who has already been on the receiving end of plenty of criticism for her Blue Origin thrill ride, also appears to have enjoyed the experience.
"I feel super connected to love," Perry said in an interview, beaming. "I think this experience has shown me you never know how much love is inside of you, like, how much love you have to give."
CBS News broadcast journalist and TV personality Gayle King, who was also on board the rocket, appeared to be aware of the ongoing narrative that billionaires were simply going on an extremely expensive thrill ride.
"What happened to us was not a 'ride,' this was a bonafide freakin' flight," a defensive King said in an interview, admitting that she went into it terrified of flying. "I'm so proud of me right now, I still can't believe it."
To King, it was a moment of self-reflection.
"And you look down at the planet, and you think, that's where we came from?" she said. "To me, it's such a reminder about how we need to better, be better. Do better, be better, human beings."
"People are dying, Gayle," one user in the chat wrote.
More on Blue Origin: Olivia Munn Disgusted by Rocket Blasting Katy Perry Into Space
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Chat Relentlessly Mocks Katy Perry's "Space Trip"
