What would Valentina say

April 15, 2025 7:38 AM

Scientist and former NASA engineer join first all-female crew in space since 1963 (Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova flew a solo mission on the Vostok 6 and orbited Earth 48 times).

Women in Space (Wikipedia article)

Jerrie Cobb on the need to send women to space (1963) (YouTube interview footage)

Tereshkova speaks about the experience (YouTube Science Museum feature)

Sally Ride, first US American woman in space

Canada's first female astronaut, Roberta Bondar

Previously

posted by ginger.beef (42 comments total)

Maybe I'm cynical, but you could also say: All-female group of passengers complete PR stunt in rocket-based dick measuring contest between two of the world's very richest men.
posted by ssg at 7:44 AM on April 15 [50 favorites]

You can be cynical and also entirely correct.
posted by mcstayinskool at 7:51 AM on April 15 [9 favorites]

Maybe they could make a graphic novel about them and put it on the NASA website...
posted by pipeski at 7:52 AM on April 15 [6 favorites]

The Guardian: What’s more vacuous than an endless vacuum? It’s Lauren Sánchez and Katy Perry’s party in space. The all-female Blue Origin flight on Monday broke boundaries and set records in the spouting of girlboss gibberish
posted by ShooBoo at 7:52 AM on April 15 [10 favorites]

Weird that I have to dig into the main article to find their names.

and Amanda Nguyen, a scientist who studied planets around other stars and now advocates for survivors of sexual violence.

I am so so happy that Amanda Nguyen finally got to space, Bezos and the celebrity stunt of it all notwithstanding.

She stopped her career as an astrophysicist after she was raped and discovered how broken the justice system was.

She advocated and got passed the Sexual Assault Survivor's Bill of Rights Act, which entitles survivors to free medical exams, mandates that forensic evidence be kept for at least the statute of limitations on rape, and provides victims the option of extending that timeline when they request notification before a rape kit containing forensic evidence from an assault is destroyed.
posted by ishmael at 7:54 AM on April 15 [48 favorites]

Katy Perry's reaction after returning to earth was pretty cringey, almost nonsensical. I wondered if she actually suffered a concussion on reentry.
posted by ishmael at 8:04 AM on April 15

On the one hand, women in space happened!
On the other hand, it was a technicality for ten minutes and a rich people tourist thing.

So....yeah, mixed bag at least.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:51 AM on April 15 [5 favorites]

Forget about the Salvadoran gulags, here's Chicks in Space*!!!


* By some definitions of "space".
posted by tommasz at 8:53 AM on April 15 [2 favorites]

This is the only way they'd allow it.
The men in charge.
As a thing to make fun of.

It's fucking depressing.
posted by tiny frying pan at 9:01 AM on April 15 [7 favorites]

if wonder if either one of those dipshits would dare take a rocket ride these days. there's just so many things that can go wrong with spaceflight.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:17 AM on April 15 [2 favorites]

I don’t get it. There have been several women to space, as actual crew, not as 10 min passengers?

Granted, the m/f ratio is much to low, but this PR stunt? Yuck.
posted by uncle harold at 9:19 AM on April 15 [6 favorites]

Mod note: One comment deleted. Let's avoid turning a post about women in space about someone's breast. Please refer to the content policy.
posted by loup (staff) at 9:23 AM on April 15

when this came on the news last night I turned to my partner and asked "What do you think" and she said "This is bullshit" but yeah, it had me looking at the history of women in space travel a bit

this celebrity event is perfect for 2025, everything about it is perfect for our times. At least a couple of people were on the flight for reasons that were at least somewhat related to their training and expertise
posted by ginger.beef at 10:34 AM on April 15 [5 favorites]

I will cheerfully show the photo of those seven women to my granddaughter and mention how they had traveled into space as a group, by themselves. Naturally I'll also mention the black women who've been astronauts (as the granddaughter is black), along with women of various ethnic backgrounds who commanded the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station.

Stating the fact that this Blue Origin flight is something a PR stunt diminishes women in general. It adds nothing to the ongoing struggle for women to been seen as fully capable human beings.

There was a photo of Sally Ride on her first flight as America's first female that showed her sitting in the commander's seat during the flight (though I can't find it on the web). There are a few others photos of Ride being in the or around the pilot's seat during that flight also. Neither is true, Ride never commanded or piloted the Space Shuttle. But it was important for her to be seen in that position, even if it wasn't technically true.

Stories are more powerful than truth and telling or implying the story that Ride aka women could command or fly a spaceship was more important than the literal truth. It still is, so I'm glad the Blue Origin flight is getting a lot of publicity.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:37 AM on April 15 [3 favorites]

She advocated and got passed the Sexual Assault Survivor's Bill of Rights Act

Going where no man has gone before!
posted by johnabbe at 10:46 AM on April 15

On the one hand....
But on the other hand, women in space, yeah!

I'm shaking my head in amazement at the cognitive dissonance of incels talking shit about females going into space for a measly ten minutes, when they have neither the brains or balls to do so. I mean Perry, Sanchez, and King have no technical training. Just wow!

Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin launched his fiancée Lauren Sanchez...
If it could only have been the other way around, and she could have left him there.
posted by BlueHorse at 10:51 AM on April 15

> what would valentina say

valentina tereshkova is:

1. still alive
2. a staunch putinist since way back
3. a proud supporter of the “special military operation” in ukraine.

as such i have vanishingly little interest in her opinion on essentially any topic.
posted by Sperry Topsider at 10:51 AM on April 15 [17 favorites]

Stating the fact that this Blue Origin flight is something a PR stunt diminishes women in general. It adds nothing to the ongoing struggle for women to been seen as fully capable human beings.

I don't think this this adds much to the ongoing struggle for women to be seen as fully capable human beings and I'm glad your mileage varies. That's fair. It only enrages me.

The flight is also an insult to the planet, it was stunning to see Katy Perry kiss the earth after giving a big fuck you to the earth by taking an unnecessary space flight. It's also at least $150,000 per ticket. That's disgusting but no more than usual celebrity stuff I suppose.

What's the science angle? Just testing more flights? I saw a quote that was delightfully vague, "Blue Origin says the goal of the New Shepard program is also to advance research. New Shepard payload flights support a wide range of research, education, and technology development, the company added." Great!

I'm tired. I'm tired of THIS kind of feminism. Lets celebrate the actual astronauts, not tourists.

Not seeing enough about the actual scientist rockstars aboard, Aisha Bowe and Amanda Nguyen is frustrating. The news would rather headline Katy Perry. We deserve better than that.
posted by tiny frying pan at 11:05 AM on April 15 [18 favorites]

This landed very poorly with several women I follow on social media and all I've seen have been negative comments. Example article: The All-Female Blue Origin Space Flight Was Peak Girlboss Nonsense.

I'm all for space development and am rooting for Blue Origin. But these 10 minute suborbital flights are dumb publicity stunts. Maybe necessary as a way to develop the company but I'm much more interested in them building up launch capacity for things like Project Kuiper. I guess there's a "You've Come a Long Way Baby" vibe to women doing the same dumb publicity stunts that men did.
posted by Nelson at 11:23 AM on April 15

as such i have vanishingly little interest in her opinion on essentially any topic.

congratulations you have won the MetaFilteriest comment of the thread award
posted by ginger.beef at 11:30 AM on April 15 [3 favorites]

@Brandon Blatcher I appreciate your desire to highlight positive examples for women, and agree that PR 1) is not inherently bad or 2) has to perfectly accurate. I think your example of Sally Ride highlights the issue here though: that the women selected for this flight, however accomplished they are or great their contributions have been elsewhere, did not really achieve anything related to spaceflight other than taking the ride. Dr. Ride may not have commanded/piloted the flight, but there's no question that she set out to be an astronaut, worked hard to gain the appropriate credentials for consideration, and then successfully completed the rigorous training to be a NASA astronaut. Maybe it's a stretch to pose in the commander's chair, but there's no question that she earned the achievement of being on that shuttle as an astronaut.

Instead, these women were awarded a ride on a flight because of what they have contributed to the world but not because they worked towards the goal of spaceflight. And now they're being cynically hailed with "Look, the ladies can go to space too! Girl Power!" Particularly in this age of "DEI BAD!" nonsense, that can easily feed into negative narratives of "women don't deserve it." I'd suggest instead that it's better then to share stories of the many women working in the field of space and technology with your granddaughter (with some great examples in this thread) instead of pretending this flight represents some great achievement for women.
posted by mzanatta at 12:03 PM on April 15 [3 favorites]

>> such i have vanishingly little interest in her opinion on essentially any topic.

> congratulations you have won the metafilteriest comment of the thread award

nah i used to idolize her more than a bit but once i found out what she’s been up to since the end of the ussr i had to reassess pretty hard. like, as a member of the duma she voted to remove putin’s term limits / otherwise transfer all power to him. she’s not dead to me, but she is wernher von braun to me.

like, she’s an authority on 20^th century space exploration, but on anything related to 21^st century politics — including political concerns related to women in space — she is beyond suspect.
posted by Sperry Topsider at 12:21 PM on April 15 [2 favorites]

mzanatta: "Instead, these women were awarded a ride on a flight because of what they have contributed to the world but not because they worked towards the goal of spaceflight. "

Aisha Bowe is a former NASA rocket scientist, which ain't nothing. Amanda Nguyen is a bioastronautics research scientist. So I get your point but it's part of the stunt that this is being lost. Gayle King, who is no scientist, has even said how criticism won't steal their joy. That feels like one more millionaire asshole statement in the face of pretty valid criticism of this flight.

And yes people have been inspired by this but people are inspired by shallow stuff all the time! We should still strive to turn the light towards what's really impressive and has depth, vs. PR stunts for profit that damage the earth.
posted by tiny frying pan at 12:45 PM on April 15 [2 favorites]

look when a water-skiing squirrel comes on after the 6 o'clock news I for one know the world is right
posted by ginger.beef at 12:46 PM on April 15

(And please remember - women have been witnessing this "Yay! You Go GIRL" type of feminism our whole lives, there are better ways to do this, It's 2025 for fucks sake)
posted by tiny frying pan at 12:48 PM on April 15 [2 favorites]

mzanatta: "I'd suggest instead that it's better then to share stories of the many women working in the field of space and technology with your granddaughter"

I did not ask for and do not need suggestions from people who do not know her about what my granddaughter needs.

There is little worse in the world than when one says 'this is good' or 'not so bad' and someone or several someone's come along to mention how you're doing it wrong and then want to advise you on how to do it "right".

The world ain't black and white y'all.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:03 PM on April 15 [1 favorite]

Ok but do you acknowledge, like, at all, how much better that suggestion is in quality than this stunt? Don't get offended because your granddaughter is personal to you.

These are actual feminist women in this thread, grown up ones, that feel there are better things to point out to a young girl. Or point out all of them, and maybe you do, I don't know you, no offense meant.
posted by tiny frying pan at 1:10 PM on April 15

And how great mzanatta's comment was besides the part you took offense to.
posted by tiny frying pan at 1:23 PM on April 15

I'm not trying to take up too much oxygen here but how you ignore the majority of their comment but quoted the part that suggested, not told, you what might benefit your granddaughter more, is kind of emblematic of a lot of current feminist discussions and maybe I'm reaching but damn we have to discuss these things and point out where popular feminist publicity falls short because its far too easy to just dismiss criticism or laud this stunt for trivial reasons and that's it I'm stepping away now
posted by tiny frying pan at 1:26 PM on April 15

> they have neither the brains or balls to do so

Can we please stop using "balls" as slang for "courage," please. Please. Spine, guts, bravery, courage, gumption... so many gender-neutral options.
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:45 PM on April 15 [12 favorites]

valentina tereshkova is:
- still alive
- a staunch putinist since way back
- a proud supporter of the “special military operation” in ukraine.

:( I gave my niece a Valentina Tereshkova nerf rocket for Christmas. I'm not cynical enough to say never meet your heroes but this one hurts.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:24 PM on April 15

Putin was 11 years old when Tereshkova was orbiting the planet

Perhaps your niece is old enough to understand, some people get to do extraordinary things and life can take them to bad places nonetheless. It's not a bad thing to learn.

I do think Tereshkova stands apart from the women who attended the 15 minute flight in the Bezos rocket.

From the Wikipedia entry:
Valentina Tereshkova was born on 6 March 1937 in the Bolshoye Maslennikovo, a village on the Volga River[2] 270 kilometres (170 mi) northeast of Moscow and part of the Yaroslavl Oblast in central Russia.[3] Her parents had migrated from Belarus.[4] Her father, Vladimir Tereshkov,[5] was a former tractor driver and a sergeant in command of a tank in the Soviet Army. He died in the Finnish Winter War when Tereshkova was two years of age.[2] He and her mother Elena Fyodorovna Tereshkova had three children.[5] After her father's death, her mother moved the family to Yaroslavl, seeking better employment opportunity,[6][5] and became employed at the Krasny Perekop cotton mill.[2]

Tereshkova was first enrolled in school at 8 years old and graduated at 16.[2] She began working at a tire factory, and later at a textile mill, but continued her education by taking correspondence courses and graduated from the Light Industry Technical School in 1960.[2][6][7] Tereshkova also became interested from a young age in parachuting, and trained in skydiving at the local Aeroclub, making her first jump at age 22, on 21 May 1959. While still employed as a textile worker, she trained as a competitive parachutist, keeping this a secret from her family.[3] Tereshkova also joined the local Komsomol (Communist Youth League) in Yaroslavl, serving as the secretary of the organisation in 1960 and 1961. She became a member of the Communist Party in 1962.
posted by ginger.beef at 2:34 PM on April 15 [3 favorites]

A co-worker referred to this as a "DEI Flight" and I can't say that it doesn't fit, given the focus more on the rich girls playing around and posing for the camera and less on the other women on the flight.

I just wish they'd stop referring to them as Astronauts. The only contribution they've made to the advancement of spaceflight is to act as ballast. Surely for minimal additional cost they could do some sort of science while they're up there?
posted by Snowflake at 4:31 PM on April 15 [1 favorite]

This version of Blue Origin seems remarkably silly. It's just a high tech roller coaster, and a rather dull one at that. Riding the Vomit Comet gets you more zero gee time.

I don't care about the Karman line, if you don't go into orbit, you're not an astronaut.
posted by Marky at 5:00 PM on April 15 [1 favorite]

Maybe if you don't actually do anything and you're just along for the ride, you're not an astronaut no matter how high you go. I don't call myself an aeronaut just because I've been a passenger on a plane.
posted by ssg at 6:44 PM on April 15

you're not an astronaut no matter how high you go

but, well, in college there were a few times I could've sworn.. but, yes, probably so
posted by ginger.beef at 6:51 AM on April 16 [1 favorite]

Maybe if you don't actually do anything and you're just along for the ride, you're not an astronaut no matter how high you go

This reminds me of the rivalry between the mercury/gemini "pilots", who were trying really hard not to be limited to "and the monkey flips the switch" and the guys flying the X-15 rocket plane. 100 km. 54 miles. That's all it takes to get your astronaut wings.
posted by mikelieman at 4:57 PM on April 16

Stating the fact that this Blue Origin flight is something a PR stunt diminishes women in general. It adds nothing to the ongoing struggle for women to been seen as fully capable human beings.

We aren't calling this a PR stunt in a vacuum. We're calling this a PR stunt because it's coming after the government consigning other women's contributions to the memory hole; it suggests that 2-minute celebrity joyrides are all women are fit for.

(Brandon Blatcher - hoping you will also tell your niece about Mae Jamison?)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:01 PM on April 16 [2 favorites]

space shuttle like a coupe everybody get in

We're going outer space like Mae Jemison
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:00 AM on April 17 [1 favorite]

Someone figure out a way for me to dump all of today's favorites into tiny frying pan's comment, please. Even if you are someone who sensibly avoids Internet videos, that one is worth watching.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:58 AM on April 17

Oh, but here's the original: https://www.instagram.com/p/DGg2thjxRkT/
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:26 AM on April 17

Sorry I never remember to try to find an original and sometimes am not sure I can tell anyway
posted by tiny frying pan at 12:00 PM on April 17