A wild new conspiracy theory emerged online trying to discredit Blue Origin’s all-female flight to space: it never happened.
The roughly 11-minute voyage’s crew featured singer Katy Perry, CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King, Jeff Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sanchez, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, scientist Amanda Nguyen, and film producer Kerianne Flynn.
The trip has been brutally roasted online, with some critics joking that the trip “lasted shorter than Selena Gomez social media breaks” and others calling into question the need for such a trip, deeming it a publicity stunt designed to entice future wealthy passengers.
But a handful of people critical of the journey have taken things a step further by claiming the trip never happened.
The truther conspiracy is largely based on a video of the hatch door appearing to be opened briefly from the inside after landing before Bezos uses a large tool to open it from the outside.
“Here’s definitive proof that the Blue Origin mission was faked,” concluded one person on X.
The clip narrating the door opening went viral on TikTok, too, with one creator determining “Space is fake.”
@dj_newmoon KATY PERRY IN SPACE !! #katyperry #space #foryoupage #foryoupage ♬ DJ New Moon on YouTube – God & Flat Earth Music Video
“The amount of ppl that believe this happened is astonishing!” reads the top reply to the TikTok.
Other truthers pointed out the crew did not break any bones upon landing, even though fractures are not typical for astronauts.
“This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen,” wrote one skeptic. “Blue Origin celebrity launch was all fake. Landing in the desert like that would have broken bones anyway. Morons.”
The lack of scorch burns on the capsule also got flagged, even though New Shepard barely made it into space, making for a less intense reentry. It also employed a new type of heat shield.
“The blue origin all girl space flight was 100% fake. This is what re entry does to anything that goes into space,” one person said, citing an image of a scorched vessel. “Also, they don’t land some exact place, in the desert, with a bunch of people waiting.”
But the main evidence for the Blue Origin truthers is the door—and the fact that it opened from the inside instead of the outside.
NASA, however, specifically states in its safety requirements that doors should “be operable on either side by a single crewmember without the use of tools.”
While the gaffe has convinced conspiracy theorists of the mission being completely fake, some on social media have posited a different explanation.
Concluded one such person: “Its called staging for publicity purposes. A capsule full of ‘celebs,’ of course they want the photo ops and that sort of nonsense. Flight was real but the marketing staged.”
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