Someone missed the space travel invite, and she doesn’t seem happy about it. Actress Olivia Munn recently ripped into the all-female crew set to take an 11-minute flight through the Earth’s atmosphere on Monday in a Blue Origin rocket.
“There’s a lot of people who can’t even afford eggs,” Munn complained on TODAY with Jenna & Friends last week. “I think it’s a bit gluttonous.”
The actress, who probably couldn’t tell you the current price difference between a dozen pasture-raised brown eggs and Grade A large white eggs, further suggested that now is not the time for space travel.
“I’m just saying this. I know this is probably not the cool thing to say, but like, there are so many other things that are so important in the world right now,” she said.
Whether there’s a little envy at play or Munn truly believes we should stop sending people to space, she’s engaging in one of the internet’s favorite logical fallacies, suggesting that because other things are important or even more important, this one thing can’t be.
What else should these intrepid ladies be doing? Attending anti-Department of Government Efficiency rallies? Showing up to the hearings for accused UnitedHealthcare CEO murderer Luigi Mangione? Posting pro-Palestinian infographics and praising actress Rachel Zegler on their Instagram stories?
That would be like going up to your average TV watcher and saying, “How dare you binge-watch Severance (an entertaining sci-fi show) while the world is falling apart when you could be watching Adolescence (a fictional show about a murderous teenage boy that’s now required viewing for some in the United Kingdom)?”
When you look at the crew, the source of the media’s discontent with the space mission becomes clear. The six-person team includes rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, astronaut and activist Amanda Nguyen, CBS anchor Gayle King, singer Katy Perry, film producer Kerianne Flynn, and Jeff Bezos’s fiancee, Lauren Sanchez.
Celebrities, journalists, and various onlookers still haven’t forgiven Bezos (the founder of Blue Origin) and Sanchez for attending President Donald Trump’s inauguration. (Nor have they forgiven Perry for the flop that was her latest album.)
Some have also taken issue with the crew members’ confession to Elle magazine that they will — the horror! — have their hair and makeup done for the well-publicized affair.
“Space is going to finally be glam. Let me tell you something. If I could take glam up with me, I would do that,” Perry said, adding indelicately, “We are going to put the ‘ass’ in astronaut.”
Another less publicized quote from the Elle interview is that Flynn said her toddler’s preschooler classmates didn’t believe him when he said his mom was going to space. The teachers didn’t believe him either, and one of the children suggested, “Moms don’t go to space.”
“It was a really tough moment,” Flynn recalled. “I didn’t go into the classroom or correct anyone, but it just feels like it’s not something that women were known for doing — going to space. Moms don’t do it. And so now I have the opportunity as a female filmmaker to be part of this incredible crew, to actually go to space and bring that experience back.”
Sanchez joined in, “Guess what? Moms go to space.”
KATY PERRY, GAYLE KING, AND LAUREN SANCHEZ CHOSEN FOR BLUE ORIGIN’S NEXT SPACE FLIGHT
We may have lost our passion for exploration in favor of fighting culture wars, but there are still reasons to go to space (or nearly so; technically, the Blue Origin flight on Monday won’t leave the Earth’s atmosphere). Blue Origin’s stated goals are to “radically reduce the cost of access to space,” “harness the vast resources of space,” and “inspire and mobilize future generations.”
Those sound like pretty good reasons for celestial exploration. Plus, there’s the added bonus of a young boy who gets to tell his classmates that his mother really went to space.