A rocket scientist wrestles with backlash over her Blue Origin flight - Dwoskin, WaPo
In early April, I was looking at a beautiful Elle magazine spread featuring the six women who were set to crew the all-female Blue Origin flight into space. There was Katy Perry, Lauren Sánchez, Gayle King — and then my jaw dropped. There was my friend Aisha Bowe, surrounded by celebrities.
Bowe and I have known each other for nearly a decade. She’s a former NASA aerospace engineer and an entrepreneur. I always knew it was her dream to go to space. I figured she was managing a lot, so I held off on reaching out. I texted her a couple of days after the April 14 flight, asking if she was still basking in the glow. I was stunned by her response. I learned then that Bowe had been dealing with a massive and swift backlash and lots of online hate — much of it racist and sexist. She understood some of the criticism, but she was shocked that so much of it was directed at her.
Bowe’s story isn’t just a familiar lesson in how the internet can tear people down, particularly Black women struck by sudden celebrity. It is also about how people can become unwitting symbols of a particular political moment in a way that strips them of the ability to make meaning out of their own story.
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Now I’ve read that every astronaut who goes to space takes a special object up with them and you test whether that object floats in zero gravity. What was your object?
For me, the object that I took was the Bahamas flag patch. And the reason for this is the New Shepard vehicle follows a trajectory that mimics the 1961 NASA flight of Alan Shepard. Most people know where the rocket took off, but they do not think about where it landed. It landed in Grand Bahama. My family is from the Bahamas, and I, over the last decade, have worked to bring space to the Bahamas. I also wanted to nod to my heritage and the idea that I’m the product of a father who came to the United States so that he could one day potentially work at NASA. He was unable to fulfill that dream, but I was able to do that and also bring my and that piece of history to the world stage. Unfortunately, we lost my father in January. However, my grandfather was able to attend, having been born 92 years ago to take a flight to come see me go to space was not only a moving moment, but it was one where I felt as though I was in alignment with everything I’d hope to be.
On the criticism she’s gotten:
I welcome the conversation and I think it’s important to discuss what’s happening in the country today. The question that I would ask is, do we opt out because the system is flawed or do we do the work to change it for the better from the inside? I’ve never had the luxury of being in an ideal situation. I’m one of very few women who work in aerospace, who work in tech. I work in defense. And what I’ve always thought would be best is for me to be an example of what it is that I hope to see. I’ve never had the luxury of waiting for perfection.
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