Eight months have passed since Blue Origin’s groundbreaking all-women space mission, but for one astronaut, the experience was far from the dream it promised to be.
Amanda Nguyen, a trailblazing scientist and the first Vietnamese female astronaut, has spoken out about the challenges she faced following her brief 10-minute suborbital journey with fellow astronaut Katie Perry.
The mission also featured TV personality Gayle King, Jeff Bezos’ spouse and former journalist Lauren Sánchez, aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe, and executive producer Kerianne Flynn. This marked the first all-female space flight since Valentina Tereshkova in 1963.
After the mission, Perry addressed online detractors who criticized her involvement in the controversial excursion, describing the experience as being treated like a ‘human piñata’.
Nguyen has now joined her crew members in acknowledging that the mission, rather than a moment of triumph, became a ‘dream turned into a nightmare’.
“When Gayle called to check in on me in the aftermath of the spaceflight, I told her my depression might last for years,” Nguyen shared in a detailed Instagram post.
“Everything I had worked for – as a scientist, my women’s health research, the years I had trained for this moment … were buried under an avalanche of misogyny.”
The overwhelming media coverage was something Nguyen had never anticipated, and unfortunately, a significant portion of it was negative.
She added, “I felt like collateral damage, my moment of justice mutilated. I did not leave Texas for a week, unable to get out of bed. A month later, when a senior staff at Blue called me, I had to hang up on him because I could not speak through my tears.”
Nguyen described how she maintained a strong public persona and how the breast cancer research she brought on the flight was highlighted by the media, raising awareness for women’s health and aiding her advocacy for rape survivor rights.
“It’s been 8 months since then, and I’m glad that the fog of grief has started to lift,” she stated.
She continued, “What I’ve learned is that we never fully leave behind our past selves; all parts of us are valuable. It’s ok to remember and recognize the pain we’ve been through rather than erase it. Even through the tsunami of harassment, I was able to tell my survivor self ‘I kept my promise’.
“I was able to tell her that millions of strangers have kindness and discernment. Thank you for protecting her. It has been the biggest grace to feel that support. To every friend that has held my heart in your love. Every person who has shared with me what the power of representation means, every survivor that has shared with me a renewed sense of knowing that their dreams still can come true despite violence, every human who took the time to share my story above the noise.”
“When the grief returns, I begin at your kindness. It is the greatest gift this holiday season that I can feel the fog lifting. I can tell Gayle it’s not going to take years.”