Blue Origin forced to delete female astronaut's footage of first time in space after controversy - What should have been a wonderous moment was ruined by people online

By Gerrard Kaonga for UNILAD, 26 Nov 2024 - Link, Archive

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A female astronaut has said she won’t back down to ‘small men’ after a video of her in space had to be taken down.

Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin were happy to make history when they sent American engineer Emily Calandrelli into space, marking her as the 100th woman to do so.

Calandrelli was among the six 'space tourists' who set out on the ninth human test flight for Blue Origin's New Shepherd spacecraft.

However, the company was forced to delete a social media post showing a video of the MIT engineer from its page due to comments.

While there were plenty comments congratulating Calandrelli, it didn’t take long for the trolls to come out and for there to be very ‘sexualized’ replies making jokes and jabs at women in space.


Emily was part of a group of 6 'space tourists' to become the 100th woman in space (Blue Origin/Instagram)

In the video, Calandrelli compared the experience to motherhood, explaining: "I didn’t expect to see so much space, and I kept saying that’s our planet! That’s our planet! It was the same feeling I got when my kids were born, and I was like, 'That’s my baby!'"

Calandrelli even admitted that the comments began to get to her and she said that she spent her flight home texting her ‘space sisters’ and crying in her seat. A stewardess who recognized her offered her a kind word however and said ‘don’t let them dull your shine’.

Ultimately, Calandrelli had a defiant message to the trolls and haters.

She said: "I refuse to give much time to the small men on the internet. I feel experiences in my soul. It’s a trait I got from my father. We feel every emotion deeply and what a beautiful way that is to experience life. This joy is tattooed on my heart."

On the other Instagram posts celebrating the trip into space, the engineer received a barrage of support.


Emily had a defiant message to the people making ridiculous comments (Blue Origin/Instagram)

One person said: “So incredible. I love the perspective of a mom up there looking with such pride and love at our planet. Beautiful.

Another said: “Her talking about this moment had me in tears. Now seeing it with this photo, I'm sobbing.”

A third wrote: “Emily, I am so sorry to see your post regarding your video of your reaction having to be taken down because of the stupid men commenting. I shared it earlier today saying I would have had the exact reaction! I guarantee you inspired more people, especially women out there, then you can imagine.”

Another simply said: “What an inspiration.”

 

[NSA]

People can sense she's not a serious person, and so they don't treat her seriously.

Show bobs and vagene

 

[PhoBingas]

And they wrote MULTIPLE news articles about this?

Niggas are paid by the word. Of course they're going to milk this not-story for as much as it's worth.

 

[cybertoaster]

This entire thing is such a bullshit radfem manufactured controversy that I fell I'm back in 2012/13 when this nonsense became the "new normal". And then they wonder why Trump got elected again...

she spent her flight home texting her ‘space sisters’

‘space sisters’

 

[Hitchhiker]

You know who the real victim in all this is? S. Hagle. Two women on the flight and just because one is younger/better looking she gets to be 100 instead of 99. She probably had her husband pay just as much for some spess tourism and she doesn't even get a mention.

What do you mean better looking? The one woman looks like a normal looking older lady. The woman who can't handle some internet comments looks like the creepy ass alien from guardians of the galaxy.

 

[Daddy's Little Kitten]

Literally who?

 

[Dog-O-Tron 5000v5.0]

Woman moment...

 

[whatever I feel like]

Is that buzzard-faced wrinkly make-up gun victim really supposed to be the hottest woman in space?

 

[JosephStalin]

Christ, all the fucking whining about every little thing is so tiresome...if she can't take the heat she should have stayed out of the fucking kitchen.

Seriously, who cares if she was the 100th woman into space? Hell, I can remember only a few, means little to me. Hardly even a good trivia question.

 

[NIA-DOA 2.0]

I remember her.

She was one of the co-hosts on Bill Nye's Netflix series. Then they tried to make her the new "Bill Nye" with her own Netflix series.

It didn't work, and now I guess she just is used as a DEI token when they need a "girl scientist" (even though she is an engineer).

It is a shame, too. She has some very good credentials.

 

[Prokhor Zakharov]

It is a shame, too. She has some very good credentials.

And yet she is apparently still a whiny crybaby.

 

[quaawaa]

It is a shame, too. She has some very good credentials.

No, she doesn't. Don't let yourself be wowed by famous institutions; look at what people actually did.

She has a real degree in Aerospace (like many thousands of other people) that she's never used and a fake degree in "policy":

As an undergraduate, she attended West Virginia University. [...] She later graduated with a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering in 2010.

Subsequently, Calandrelli attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where she obtained an M.S. degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics as well an M.S. degree in Technology and Policy in 2013.

Her entire career is being an influencer:

Calandrelli is a professional speaker and presents on the topics of space exploration, scientific literacy, and gender equality in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). She is a TEDx speaker and a contributing writer at TechCrunch. Additionally, Calandrelli is a Brooke Owens Fellowship Mentor.

Calandrelli started a career in science communication when she became a host of Xploration Outer Space in Fox's Xploration Station educational block in 2014. In April 2017, she made several appearances on Netflix episodes of Bill Nye Saves the World. On August 25, 2020, Calandrelli's educational Netflix series titled Emily's Wonder Lab debuted. Calandrelli filmed the series while 9 months pregnant.

Calandrelli is known as "The Space Gal" online. She has given presentations at Google, Pixar, MIT, Texas Instruments, and K-12 schools and universities across the United States. She was invited by the White House to perform educational science experiments at the Easter Egg Roll in 2023 and 2024.

She has written the Ada Lace series of chapter books to introduce youth to science and technology and the picture book Reach for the Stars (2022), illustrated by Honee Jang. She also authored two books of science experiments designed for children.

She is a paid influencer for the propane industry, according to Propane Education and Research Council (PERC) documents.

(The NASA internship doesn't count because interns always take credit for their team's project)

She's pretty much just a younger, less famous, female version of Bill Nye: a rando with an engineering degree who works as an entertainer. Bill Nye at least worked for Boeing for a few years before becoming a comedian; Emily has never worked a full time job in her supposed field.

 

[Dog-O-Tron 5000v5.0]

Christ, all the fucking whining about every little thing is so tiresome...if she can't take the heat she should have stayed out of the fucking kitchen.

More like stayed IN the kitchen!

 

[A Nonny Moose]

I'm a dumb lurker who can't work out how to save the video but (part of?) it is available on the Telegraph website here for anyone who has a subscription. I tried archiving but that only seems to give the top part of the video with no sound. I usually grab videos with browser tools but this one is trickier. Posting in case anyone else has better ideas.

There's also a bit of it on YouTube:

 

[That Chris Guy]

There's a limit. This woman does nothing wrong, and is suddenly sent nasty shit from a whole bunch of randoms, of course it can get to you. If she was a man, she'd likely do something equally weak like get angry and retort back. Being confronted with pure mean-spiritedness can catch many people off guard. As it's described, this is subhuman behaviour that Nick Fuentes and the Groypers would do.

However, to your point, because they don't quote any of the offensive comments, I'm going to guess most of these comments weren't actually that offensive or were taken out of context. We had something like this earlier this month when that Wicked star lost her shit because somebody made a fan poster of her.

Her very position in life should basically galvanise her against this sort of thing. - like a multi-millionaire bemoaning that they don't have a job anymore when they're easily set for the rest of their life.

Her context is that she's a mother with children, still relatively young at 37, almost certainly makes a killing under Bezos's payroll as an engineer, and at this point has gone into fucking space. So when you get hazed on the Internet under general jokes about women in space, it shouldn't be some devastating event where you need to go and have a cry with your "space sisters" about it. This is the kind of reaction I'd expect from a drama queen or social media whore, not from a highly-accomplished adult.

[EDIT]: 11 minutes. 11 goddamn minutes. It's still 11 minutes that most of the world will never get the privilege to experience, but the "rollercoaster" comment is surprisingly accurate.

 

[DoubleD]

I'm a dumb lurker who can't work out how to save the video but (part of?) it is available on the Telegraph website here for anyone who has a subscription. I tried archiving but that only seems to give the top part of the video with no sound. I usually grab videos with browser tools but this one is trickier. Posting in case anyone else has better ideas.

There's also a bit of it on YouTube:

View attachment 6696545

And now I can understand why her clarifying statements explained that she was thinking of the births of her kids and not any other reason why she might have said "baby"...

Someone on Twitter uploaded a higher quality version. It's longer, but it cuts out mid-sentence during Calandrelli's sexual moans and I wasn't able to cum to it. Sadge.

On a serious note, I think I can understand now why she's acting like such a victim...

“It’s not an achievement being a woman.”

“Would you consider yourself the hottest woman to ever go to space? Any other contenders?”

“It was just a glorified roller coaster. You ain’t no astronaut.”

...and probably why The Independent went with these comments instead of what was the actual problem. The problem was that Calandrelli felt embarrassed - not victimised by people's misogynistic comments - super fucking embarrassed that her emotionally honest reaction to being in outer space (which would have been both immensely personal and very public) was to moan like a fucking porn star! (Pun very much intended, thank you very much!) The comments only got to her because they pointed out how it obviously sounded to an unbiased observer, and she hated that. Hence why BO yanked the video and didn't just nuke the comments section.

But if The Independent had done a proper journalism and reprinted some of the "hurr durr, she sounds like she's having sex" comments, it would have only made the embarrassment worse. She doubtless wouldn't have admitted to a journalist that those specific comments were the problem.

I feel for her, but this is no one's fault but her own. A million viewers of that video could not have simply held their tongues and pretended that the emperor's clothes were on. Moreover, the fact that her first resort was to run to her "It was muhsogony!" hugbox and turn this into a struggle session for space nerds kinda makes me hate her all the same.

It would be her own just desserts if the Internet punishes her with the Streissand effect.

In space, no one everyone can hear you scream cum.

 

[AllieKat]

I'm a dumb lurker who can't work out how to save the video but (part of?) it is available on the Telegraph website here for anyone who has a subscription. I tried archiving but that only seems to give the top part of the video with no sound. I usually grab videos with browser tools but this one is trickier. Posting in case anyone else has better ideas.

There's also a bit of it on YouTube:

View attachment 6696545

She creaming those panties.

 

[Iron Jaguar]

She said: "I refuse to give much time to the small men on the internet. I feel experiences in my soul. It’s a trait I got from my father. We feel every emotion deeply and what a beautiful way that is to experience life. This joy is tattooed on my heart."

Well, I know who she voted for.

There's a limit. This woman does nothing wrong, and is suddenly sent nasty shit

She wasn't "sent" anything. She chose to read comments made on a video that was publicly posted. That's on her.
Remember:

 

[Neurotypical Mantis]

"huge hate mob of trolls" = like 3 people

 

[Buttigieg2020]

Is this the first space lolcow?

Nah Lisa Nowak was way more hardcore than this lady:

 

[Dysnomia]

I'm just glad the 100th woman in space was a woman and not a tranny.