Gayle King has caught several days of social media hell for boarding Blue Origin’s spaceflight on Monday (April 14) — and, frankly, we understand why. Since the return of the 11-minute space flight, King has been criticized by fans, celebrities and even so-called friends who have shared their thoughts about her adventure to orbit.
But the dogpile on King and the five other ladies who joined her — including pop star Katy Perry and journalist Lauren Sanchéz — on the “first all-woman-crew space flight” is harsher than it should be. If you want to get past the noise and give the trip a positive read, it’s a powerful reminder that Black women can push beyond our limits and shape history.
On the one hand, we need to keep it a buck: The optics look bad. The Blue Origin spacecraft belongs to Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of Amazon and The Washington Post. Dude isn’t on most folks’ Christmas card list these days, especially considering he’s shamelessly cozied up to President Donald Trump.
The world’s second-richest man using his toys to fly citizens up to space — on a seat he auctioned off for $28 million — seems like self-indulgence that we don’t have space for given the state of the world.
On the other hand, King made a rather compelling case for her trip in an impassioned clapback at her critics. In a recent interview, King didn’t hold back her frustration, calling out critics who said her flight was “a ride” while comparing herself to late astronaut Alan Shepard, the man who walked on the moon.
The 70-year-old CBS journalist emphasized how she faced her fears to participate in the historic all-female mission and that the flight contributes valuable data to space research, including efforts to repurpose Earth’s waste in space for environmental benefits.
“Space is not an either-or, it’s a both-and. Because you do something in space, doesnt mean you’re taking anything away from Earth,” she said, before reminding folks that Blue Origin’s goal is to find ways to dispose of Earth’s waste into space.
King also leaned in on one of the most repeated criticisms: That she and the ladies did the space-traveling equivalent of a run to the corner store.
“Please don’t call it a ride. That is not a friggin’ ride...you have never said to a [man] astronaut when he goes up ‘Boy what a ride,’” she said. “It was called a flight, it was called a journey...a ride implies its frivolous, and there was nothing frivolous about what we did.”
Of course, that — and her comparison to Shepard —made folks pile on her even harder.
King also makes the compelling point that the trip will inspire other young ladies to believe they, too, can fly to the edge of space. To her point, space flight has been perceived by most of us as unattainable — something reserved for an elite number of scientists. The growing interest in space tourism does allow you to leave years of training at the door...but for the foreseeable future, you’ll need to either be loaded or have some great connections.
Essentially, King and Perry — who is also getting dragged online — will never be able to escape the fact that they are celebrities who looked like they were capitalizing on a buzzy moment when everything on Earth seems like it’s falling apart.
The flight was a bad look to a lot of people, but a Black woman’s achievements are always caught between admiration and suspicion, and you don’t have to look far to see the usual MAGA suspects piling on King and King alone. And she doesn’t deserve that for spending 11 minutes in a ship.