“Katy Perry went to space?!” were the first words that left my mouth when I opened up my phone last week to see countless memes of the pop star’s spaceship ride to the Kármán line, the barrier between Earth’s atmosphere and space.
This unexpected excursion has set the internet alight, with an image of Perry— floating through zero gravity and clutching a daisy in her hand— proliferating across social media platforms. Behind all of the jokes, however, this space tourism represents something much more serious: society’s advancement towards consumerism and climate change inducing activities.
The April 14 trip was championed by Blue Origin, a space technology company started by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos. Its passengers included a total of six women: Gayle King, Lauren Sánchez, Amanda Nguyen, Kerianne Flynn, Aisha Bowe, and Katy Perry herself. They traveled 66 miles above sea level for a total of 10 minutes and 21 seconds.
This trip has been marketed as a journey for women’s empowerment, boasting the first all-women space crew since Russian Astronaut Valentina Tereshkova’s solo mission in 1963. However, the reality of the trip is hidden behind this feminist facade.
While full ticket prices for a Blue Origin flight are not made public, information on the company’s website states that a $150,000 deposit must be put down before customers officially book their flight. The extravagance and exclusivity of being able to purchase one of these tickets only feeds into the rampant obsession with possessing whatever novelty is presented as cool or trendy.
With the current social media culture constantly pushing out new products and promoting different brands, this seems like a natural next step in the wrong direction— leading the next generation towards placing value in whatever material good is most coveted, rather than practicing sustainable buying habits.
The concerns with space tourism stretch beyond its societal effects. Environmental concerns have arisen with anticipated increase in rocket launches that space tourism will inevitably cause. While just this one trip won’t pose too much of a danger to the environment, what it represents for the future of travel is worrying.
Rocket launches can emit black carbon directly into our stratosphere, impacting the ozone layer and leading to increased climate change. On top of this, rockets also emit significantly more CO2 per launch than any other mode of transport, clocking several hundred tonnes of CO2 emissions per flight.
With current climate change concerns, and countries already struggling to limit global temperature increases, now is not the time to begin to increase the number of rocket launches. This could drastically exacerbate these issues, not to mention these launches are not increasing our knowledge and understanding of space in any important way.
Space exploration carried out by astronauts and scientists is crucial in developing our understanding of the universe we live in. Space tourism? Not so much. Sure, getting the chance to fly to space is cool. But with all of its negative effects on our earth and society, are those 10 minutes really worth it?
