Katy Perry to take a ride on Blue Origin

[at Quark's]

You'd think Bezos would love any and all publicity for his rockets but you can't even find a decent model kit of Blue Origin, not that I want a penis rocket on my shelf but just saying.

'Penis-shaped object takes Kate Perry to heaven and back'.

I'm not inprinciple against space tourism. If some rich twat with more money than sense wants to spend a few million for a few fun minutes in a rocket then meh.

Just don't try and pass it off as courageous and boundary pushing.

I'm a bit torn about the idea. On the one hand, I think it's part of the logical evolution of space travel, that after the exploration phase there must come a phase of making it economically accessible to a larger group. And if funnelling money this way into space travel ultimately finds its way into research into cheaper, more economically viable methods of space travel I'd think that's a good thing.

On the other hand, each 'unnecessary' space launch still takes a heavy toll on the environment.

Can't really get too worked up about the bragging of rich people they're 'astronauts' now. Every sane person knows that they're not remotely in the same league as those true NASA astronauts and Russian cosmonauts, and appropriation and 'devaluation' of titles that by older right were only applied to a class 'above' the new usage has always been a phenomenon throughout history. Being a 'manager' today doesn't nearly mean as much as it probably did a hundred years ago, for example.

 

[Sam_I_Am]

Valentina Tereshkova's was the first all-woman flight to space though. It was a solo flight, but that counts.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Valentina Tereshkova's was the first all-woman flight to space though. It was a solo flight, but that counts.

Plus she would have actually had to fly her craft so she's also a proper astronaut /s

 

[Daedalus]

This is true. Vostok missions were controlled primarily by ground stations and automated systems, but Tereshkova was given a sealed envelope with override codes to unlock manual controls. What really should differentiate 'Astronaut' from 'passenger' is the capacity to "take her in manually", as it were.