On April 14, six female celebrities flew to space with Blue Origin. This was the 11th human spaceflight conducted by Blue Origin, a space technology company founded by tech billionaire Jeff Bezos. Looking at how the event was marketed, it is clear that it was intended to be celebrated as a step for women in STEM, especially as this was the first all-women spaceflight since Valentina Tereshkova’s single space mission in 1963. Instead, the crew faced immediate backlash, and the flight has sparked conversations about the negative impacts of space tourism in general, and whether it can ever be justified.
Space tourism is on the rise
Space tourism, defined as human space travel for recreational purposes, has emerged as a growing industry. Companies like Blue Origin, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX now offer opportunities for “normal” people to view Earth from space and experience weightlessness. However, space tourism is not accessible to the everyday person. The cost of flying to space with one of these companies is exorbitant, meaning only celebrities and the ultra-wealthy can afford it. A ticket on a Virgin Galactic flight can cost $450,000 while Blue Origin requires a $150,000 deposit just to secure a seat, with previous auctions for tickets on Blue Origin flights reaching as high as $28m. Space tourism, then, is not an opportunity for the average person to go to space, but is restricted to the wealthiest members of society.
It is therefore unsurprising that people would have such a strong negative reaction to these space flights, with critics targeting celebrities onboard – such as Katy Perry, Gayle King, and Jeff Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sánchez – as out of touch. The underlying message is clear: to be able to fly to space, you must either be rich, famous, or engaged to a tech billionaire.
The environmental impact
The backlash against space tourism is not solely rooted in its costs. Spaceflights also have detrimental impacts on the environment. A study from 2022 found that black carbon (soot) particles released by rockets have a warming effect almost 500 times more potent than all other sources of soot combined. As a result, even a small number of spaceflights could cause significant damage to the environment.
Furthermore, the most common fuels used in rockets emit nitrogen oxides and water vapour. Both gases are harmful to the ozone layer, which plays a fundamental role in absorbing the majority of the sun’s harmful UV rays. A hole in the ozone layer could have dire consequences for both plant and marine life, and lead to an increase in skin cancer rates among humans. The ozone layer has been a focal point of environmental concern since the discovery of a hole over Antarctica in the 1980s. This prompted the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement signed in 1987 aimed at reducing the use of ozone-depleting chemicals.
In 2023, a UN-backed panel of experts reported that they believed the ozone layer could make a full recovery by around 2066, largely thanks to the Montreal Protocol. However, all the progress made over the past few decades to restore the ozone layer is at risk of being undone by the growing space tourism industry. Blue Origin tried to frame the flight as more environmentally friendly because it emitted “water vapour with no carbon emissions,” but this is misleading; water vapour is still a greenhouse gas and damages the ozone layer.
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By GlobalDataCurrently, emissions from rockets are relatively small compared to those from the aircraft industry. However, rocket flights release gases directly into the atmosphere, where they can remain for years, and the environmental impact of a single rocket flight is far greater than emissions from one commercial flight. As the space tourism industry grows, this will become a greater concern. For example, Virgin Galactic’s goal is to conduct 400 space flights per year, yet just one rocket launch can emit between 200t and 300t of carbon dioxide.
According to the 2022 World Inequality Report, an 11-minute spaceflight (the same length as the Blue Origin flight) emits at least 75t of carbon per passenger, which is as much carbon as the entire lifetime emissions of one billion people who emit less than one tonne per year. The report states: “It therefore takes a few minutes in space travel to emit at least as much carbon as an individual from the bottom billion will emit in her entire lifetime.”
One small step (backward) for women
Given the environmental harm associated with space tourism, it is difficult to view the Blue Origin flight as an empowering milestone for women. Additionally, the way some of the participants have spoken about the flight has led to criticism. There was an extensive focus on their attire, with claims that they were the first women in space to wear makeup (Rhea Seddon took makeup to space in 1985) or have their hair done (a magazine published a picture of Tereshkova at the hairdresser before her solo flight). Katy Perry even stated: “We are going to put the ‘ass’ in astronaut,” which trivialises the significance of sending an all-female crew to space for the first time in six decades.
Some astronauts have reported experiencing what is known as the “Overview Effect,” a profound shift in perspective regarding Earth and the universe. The Soviet Russian astronaut Yuri Artyushkin reported feeling “a strong sense of compassion and concern for the state of our planet and the effect humans are having on it”. A similar sentiment was echoed by some of the women aboard the Blue Origin flight. At a conference following the flight, Lauren Sánchez said the experience prompted her to think: “Protect this planet we’re on, this is the only one we’ve got.” It’s a shame that this realisation did not occur to her before take-off.
The space tourism industry is entirely out of reach for most people, and yet it has the potential to completely undermine environmental efforts. A Virgin Galactic launch emits 4.5t of carbon per passenger, which is more than double the Paris Agreement’s recommended annual individual carbon budget. If the actions of a few billionaires and celebrities pose such a huge threat to the climate, perhaps there should be more regulation surrounding the space tourism industry.
