History -- or was it Herstory -- was made this week (not) when celebrities stretched a personal experience lasting minutes into coverage that we must now endure for who knows how long. That leaves a lot of possibilities, I know, but in this case, the hyperventilation comes in the form of an Amazon-fueled space walk in which Jeff Bezos sent six women, including his fiancé, into the atmosphere, and never turned off the microphone.
Clearly, I’m online shopping way too much if he can afford this.
With coverage more inflated than the currency in Venezuela, Bezos also invited celebrity observers like Oprah Winfrey, Khloe Kardashian and Kris Jenner perhaps so that scientific journals, like People Magazine and Page Six, could capture the magic of women screaming as the capsule returned to earth.
And then came the introspection. Walking in the footsteps of visionaries like Madam Curie or the mathematical genius women at NASA memorialized by Margot Lee Shetterly in Hidden Figures, the space explorers -- Katy Perry, Gayle King and Lauren Sánchez – got their moment. And the social media platforms went wild with delight. What better way to advertise space tourism.
"I feel super connected to love," Perry reportedly said. "This experience is second to being a mom."
Well, I can see how bringing an entire person into the world matches about 10 minutes in flight.
Both events do result in photo ops, one with the person who grew inside you for 9 months, and another, when after about 9 minutes, you get to talk to the press.
Not to be too contrary to the fairer sex club, of which I am a member, but does it really matter that it was an all-female crew? As a frequent flyer, I’ve never once asked the sex of the person flying the plane, but I’d like to believe they practiced – a lot.
Still, Blue Origin – not to be confused with Blue Steele of Zoolander fame – managed to go up and down without incident. It seemed to go better for the ladies than Bezos, who took quite a fall walking around the capsule. If you watched the circus, it was one small step for man, one giant shriek for womenkind.
But significantly, the all-female hype makes the absence of reporting on the heroic Suni Williams all the more striking.
She was supposed to be eight days in space along with Barry "Butch" Wilmore (yes, boys were allowed) for a mission that stretched to nine months. And that wasn’t because they were comped for extra days.
She survived in space with such grace that it’s hard not to notice the disparity in conversation. Everywhere I see stories of the nine minutes of celebrity hype rather than an extraordinary reflection on nine months of true grit.
Over the last year, there seemed to be an amazing lack of curiosity over how two people could be so stranded by events. I’m speaking about the two space explorers and not the Biden-Harris team in charge at that time who seemed to be clueless as to how to solve the problem.
But today, some seem more excited about the short parachute ride in space than in the engineering that resulted in a real rescue. Elon Musk’s Space X employed some real Tom Hanks-Apollo 13 magic to bring Williams and Wilmore home. And thank God he did.
But hold my airsickness bag, as I am forced to scroll past more hyperbole about this brief Bezos escapade.
To put this in perspective, some very rich people experienced a very rare thing, despite all their bloated talk during the election about things like income inequality.
After the flight, Perry said: "It’s not about me. It’s not about singing my songs, it’s about a collective energy in there, it’s about us, it’s about making space for future women and taking up space and belonging …”
It seems like faint praise to take up space … in space … but to each her own. If only Perry had found that extraterrestrial she keeps singing about, now that would be newsworthy. But at the end of the day, the autograph I want belongs to Williams, who seems to know a lot about endurance and courage.
On her return, she and Wilmore gave an interview to FOX about the lessons learned.
She said the ordeal allowed national leaders to “understand that our involvement as a country, as a spacefaring nation, is really important throughout the world. It sets an example, and it shows our ability to be able to do the hard things, put people in space, operate in space, work in space, and then bring us back. It's important, and I appreciate that.”
And we appreciate you. Thank you for your service.
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