The world’s first female Vietnamese astronaut has opened up about the depression she felt as she experienced an ‘avalanche of misogyny’ following her trip to space.
Amanda Nguyen, 34, was onboard Blue Origin’s first all-female space flight in April, along with singer Katy Perry, Gayle King, and Jeff Bezos’ wife Lauren Sanchez, as well as NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe and film producer Kerianne Flynn.
During the 11-minute voyage, they reached an altitude of 66.5 miles, crossing the Karman Line and officially entering space.
But the flight soon received backlash for its jaw-dropping price tag, its questionable environmental impact, and the bizarre and dramatic antics of its six-person crew after they touched down on Earth’s soil.
Some online even claimed that the mission took place entirely inside a film studio, with the crew ‘floating’ in tanks of water, saying it had ‘the worst CGI any of these fake space agencies has produced.’
Amid the fallout, Nguyen said she went into a deep depression that she recalled telling Gayle King ‘might last for years.’
She wrote in a lengthy statement posted to Instagram on Sunday that everything she had worked for as a scientist who researched women’s health and conducted experiments in space, training for years to travel beyond Earth’s atmosphere ‘were buried under an avalanche of misogyny.’
The ‘volume of coverage’ over the flight was ‘unprecedented,’ Nguyen continued, so that even a ‘small fraction of negativity becomes staggering.’
‘It amounted to billions of hostile impressions – an onslaught no human brain has evolved to endure,’ Nguyen said.
‘I felt like collateral damage, my moment of justice mutilated.’
She was unable to leave Texas for a week after the flight, as she struggled to get out of bed.
Even one month later, Nguyen said, she struggled to ‘speak through my tears.’
‘Publicly, it was important to me to remain strong, especially for the sponsors of my seat who made my research and dream come true,’ the astronaut said, acknowledging that ‘there has been overwhelming good that has come out of this.’
‘The flight opened doors to speak to world leaders and advance my fight for rape survivors rights in an unprecedented way,’ she continued.
The lotus seeds she flew with to mark the 30th anniversary of reconciliation between the US and Vietnam were also exchanged as ‘a symbol of peace.’
‘My goal of science as a tool for diplomacy was achieved,’ Nguyen said.
She then spoke about the historic significance of her flight.
‘When Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, bombs rained down on Vietnam,’ Nguyen noted. ‘This year, when my boat refugee family looked at the sky, instead of bombs, they saw the first Vietnamese woman in space.
‘We came on boats, and now we’re on spaceships,’ she said.
Reflecting on the flight, Nguyen said she is ‘glad that the fog of grief has started to lift’ after eight months.
‘Vietnam saved me. My friends who continually checked in on me saved me. The love of my community saved me,’ she revealed.
Nguyen then shared her appreciation for ‘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 [and] every human who took the time to share my story above the noise.’
‘In the moments of deep grief this year, I reached back out to a familiar face, to her – my survivor self – who found the strength to fight. How horrible that I needed to deploy that skill once again.’
But from the experience, Nguyen said she learned that ‘we never fully leave behind our past selves.’
She said she is now proud to have ‘kept my promise’ and focused on ‘kindness’ even through the ‘tsunami of harassment.’
‘It is the greatest gift this holiday season that I can feel the fog lifting,’ Nguyen said.
‘I can tell Gayle it’s not going to take years.’
