A "Hollywood stunt" or just a damn costly and tone deaf 11-minute photo op? Conspiracy theories are everywhere online about the Blue Origin space tourism flight which happened earlier this week. Here's everything you need to know.
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Conspiracy theorists are convinced that Katy Perry’s trip to space was faked.
The trip, organised and bankrolled by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ space tourism company Blue Origin, sent the singer into space on Monday 14 April in an all-female crew that included TV personality Gayle King, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, film producer Kerianne Flynn, and Jeff Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sánchez.
Now, the controversial 11-minute trip is being considered a hoax by conspiracy theorists who claim that footage showing a capsule door being shut and reopened again upon landing is a sign the flight was faked.
Social media users have called it a “Hollywood stunt” and the “Height of Fakeism”, while some have suggested that it was strange the capsule did not have any burn marks from ‘re-entry’.
While the headline-grabbing publicity stunt was nothing more than a ludicrously expensive, environmentally damaging and massively tone-deaf photo op which we labelled as “masquerading as happy-clappy activism” and “insanely out of touch to the point of parody”, there are some explanations to both these conspiracy theories.
First, the door. It was blatantly a way for Bezos to take advantage of a photo opportunity. Moreover, as per Daily Mail, it is standard practice for capsules to be openable from both sides - in line with NASA’s safety requirement, which states: “Doors shall be operable by a single crew member in no more than 60 seconds, from both sides of the hatch.”
Second, the burn marks – or lack thereof - could be explained by the fact that the New Shepard capsule barely made it into space and its return from Earth didn’t create the heat of a typical re-entry burn.
Then, there were images circulating on social media of a synthetic-looking hand seen through the capsule window.
Were there only dummies on board?
Well, considering that the photo is not of the Blue Origin NS-31 launch but rather of a test flight of New Shepard Crew Capsule 2.0, which took place in December 2017 and included one mannequin, that’s a ‘no’.
So, criticise the mission all you want – we certainly do.
Feel free to align yourself with what actresses Olivia Munn and Emily Ratajkowski have said – branding the exercise “gluttonous” and “disgusting” - and cheer on singer Lily Allen, who said during the latest episode of her Miss Me? podcast: “I mean, what the fucking hell is that all about? But in all seriousness: What? Why? For why? (…) I think they just went out of the atmosphere and then turned around and came back again. They didn’t go to the moon or some shit.”
Allen continued: “We’re on the brink of recession, people are really fucking struggling to make ends meet and get food on their table. I don’t know about how things feel in London, but in New York it feels fucking expensive at the moment. It’s hard to leave the house without spending 500 dollars – and I’m not even joking.”
And do look into how Perry has stated she wants to protect “Mother Earth” but was on a space flight that burned more emissions than Taylor Swift on her entire Eras Tour.
However, when it comes to finding credence among conspiracies which state the whole exercise was a hoax, it’s tin foil hats at the ready and nurse on speed dial.
It happened. It's just a shame that it did.
