Photo Credit; Getty Images
The historic all-female Blue Origin space flight earlier this year, featuring Vietnamese-American scientist and civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, has been overshadowed by the personal toll it took on her. Nguyen, the first Vietnamese woman to venture into space, has opened up about a period of depression after facing a "tsunami of harassment," which she attributed to "an avalanche of misogyny."
This personal ordeal occurred alongside broader public criticism leveled at the 11-minute flight for its perceived expense and environmental impact.
The flight also included pop star Katy Perry and Lauren Sánchez, the journalist and wife of Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, among its crew.
In a statement posted on Instagram, Ms Nguyen said that when fellow crew member Gayle King - a US news anchor - called to check in on her in the days following the flight, "I told her my depression might last for years".
She described the news coverage and social media reaction that followed the trip as 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."
Ms Nyugen, who has worked as a scientist researching women's health and conducted numerous experiments during the Blue Origin flight, said everything she "had worked for - as a scientist, my women's health research, the years I had trained for this moment, the experiments I operated in space, the history that was being made as the Vietnamese woman astronaut, on the 50th anniversary of the US-Vietnam war, as the child of boat refugees, the promise I kept to my survivor self - was buried under an avalanche of misogyny".
Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket lifted off from its Texas launch site in April and took the six-woman crew on an 11-minute flight which crossed the internationally recognised boundary of space. The crew also included aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe and film producer Kerianne Flynn.
The New Shepard rocket does not require human operation and is fully automated.
