In America, while a rising number of women are dying because doctors refuse to treat their miscarriages or are arrested for having them, where millions of women may lose hard-won voting rights while others are eradicated from public life and historical record because of their gender, six rich women did what rich people do best in perilous times: blissfully abscond to the safety of their own private estates or islands or yachts — or, in this case, spaceship — and flaunt their wealth to the masses.
On Monday morning, six mostly rich and/or famous women boarded a rocket and traveled on billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin New Shepard Rocket to the Kármán line — the boundary separating Earth’s atmosphere and space — and remained in this space briefly, for a journey that lasted a total of approximately 11 minutes.
Space tourism is not feminism. It is consumer capitalism, at its most inaccessible.
For this cunning act of marketing Blue Origin’s space tourism, the company declared these women “trailblazers” and history makers for being its first “all-female flight crew.” On the same webpage, the company includes information about how you, too, can “fly on a future New Shepard mission” and “purchase commemorative merchandise.” Interested space tourists must put down a $150,000 deposit; the company does not share information about the total cost of a ticket, although it did auction a seat on its first flight for $28 million.
I’m all for women’s progress and liberation. But calling this a win for women feels outright delusional.
Yet some on the crew (which included Bezos’ girlfriend, Lauren Sánchez) championed their effort as just that, an important marker of progress for their fellow women: “This representation really matters,” said crew member and aerospace scientist Aisha Bowe. “It’s people seeing themselves and being able to show up authentically in their careers in the future.” Pop star Katy Perry interpreted their flight as “making space for future women and taking up space and belonging.”
But space tourism is not feminism. It is consumer capitalism, at its most inaccessible. Businesses have for decades tried to sell us this form of what feminist writer Andi Zeisler has called superficial “marketplace feminism.” Monday’s “historic” mission is nothing less than a show of identity politics thinly cloaking the American capitalist impulse of the “more is better” mentality. The glamour shots of the six women in their suits — looking serious but sexy, their partly unzipped suits flashing just a bit of skin — are proof of how this faux feminism mutilates real feminist politics and turns it into an aesthetic posture.
These women arguably put their lives on the line to act as marketing props. Talk about serving the patriarchy: By their own choosing, they entered into the rocket and hurtled their bodies at more than 2,000 mph to touch space.
And what was ultimately learned when all six women returned safely to Earth?
Prior to Monday’s flight, Perry commented that the journey was for “the beautiful Earth,” adding, “I think the perspective that we’re all gonna walk away from is like, ‘Oh my gosh, we have to protect our mother. Fiercely.’” Sadly, such reminders and remarks often blatantly ignore and erase the real environmental harm that a single space flight can do to our beautiful Mother Earth: Each passenger on a typical space tourism flight of 11 minutes emits at least 75 tonnes (about 83 tons) of carbon (roughly 274 tonnes of CO₂, or about 302 tons) into the atmosphere — the equivalent of what Thailand emitted in 2023. Blue Origin’s New Shepard Rocket uses water vapor and does not emit CO₂, although that doesn’t eliminate causing damage to the atmosphere. “You look down at the planet and you think, that’s where we came from?” crew member Gayle King said upon the rocket’s return to Earth. “To me it’s such a reminder about how we need to do better, be better.” That feels like an overall worthwhile, if vague, sentiment. But how an 11-minute flight to the borders of space gets us there remains a mystery. CLARIFICATION: (April 15, 3:32 p.m. ET): This article has been updated to clarify that the carbon emissions cited are from a typical space tourism flight, not from Blue Origin’s New Shepard Rocket specifically.
Marcie Bianco
Marcie Bianco is a writer and editor based in California. She is the author of "Breaking Free: The Lie of Equality and the Feminist Fight for Freedom." 
