Blue Origin ‘Astronaut’ Says Mockery Left Her ‘Depressed’ And ‘Unable To Get Out Of Bed’

Amanda Nguyen, one of the women aboard the so-called first female space flight, says she experienced depression due to the “tsunami of harassment” following the highly publicized Blue Origin ride.

Besides Nguyen, pop singer Katy Perry, CBS anchor Gayle King, and Jeff Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sánchez were among the six women who flew to the edge of space on the Amazon founder’s Blue Origin spacecraft in April. Their flight was touted as historic and important by many major outlets, but critics mocked the circus surrounding the 11-minute space tourism flight.

Nguyen, a bioastronautics research scientist, said backlash to the flight affected both her career and mental health. The 34-year-old posted about it on her Instagram on Tuesday, describing it as “another dream turned into a nightmare.”

She said the news coverage and social media reactions were “unprecedented,” and argued that even a “small fraction of negativity becomes staggering.” Nguyen also noted that her accomplishment of becoming the first Vietnamese woman in space was “buried under an avalanche of misogyny.”

 

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“It amounted to billions of hostile impressions,” she wrote, “an onslaught no human brain has evolved to endure.”

“I did not leave Texas for a week, unable to get out of bed. A month later, when a senior staff at Blue [Origin] called me, I had to hang up on him because I could not speak through my tears,” Nguyen went on.

“In my moments of deep grief this year, I reached back out to a familiar place, to her – my survivor self – who found the strength to fight. How horrible that I needed to deploy that skill once again,” she said.

The space flight participant said only recently that the “fog of grief has started to lift.” “Vietnam saved me … You all saved me,” she went on. 

Blue Origin is a private space company founded in 2000 by billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The all-female space flight was criticized by social media users and celebrities for being over-promoted for what it turned out to be.

Actress Olivia Munn said as much on an episode of “Today with Jenna and Friends,” as The Daily Wire previously reported.

“What’s the point? Is it historic that you guys are going on a ride? I think it’s a bit gluttonous,” Munn said. “Space exploration was to further our knowledge and to help mankind. What are they gonna do up there that has made it better for us down here?”