{"id":218863,"date":"2025-12-30T23:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T23:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/218863\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T23:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T23:12:09","slug":"astronaut-amanda-nguyen-says-backlash-from-blue-origin-flight-left-her-depressed-blue-origin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/218863\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronaut Amanda Nguyen says backlash from Blue Origin flight left her depressed | Blue Origin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amanda Nguyen, the Vietnamese-American astronaut who was part of the all-female Blue Origin<\/a> spaceflight, has opened up about her depression after she experienced a \u201ctsunami of harassment\u201d after the trip, in which she became the first Vietnamese woman to go to space.<\/p>\n

Nguyen, 34, was part of April\u2019s historic 11-minute flight, whose crew included pop star Katy Perry, broadcast journalist Gayle King, and journalist and wife of Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos<\/a>, Lauren S\u00e1nchez. The flight was heavily criticized for its environmental impact and critics questioned its purpose and use of resources.<\/p>\n

For Nguyen, who is a civil rights activist for sexual assault survivors as well as a bioastronautics research scientist, she said the backlash to flight saw her professional achievements and dreams \u201cburied under an avalanche of misogyny\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a lengthy statement<\/a> shared on Instagram on Tuesday, she said that when King called to check on her days after the flight, \u201cI told her my depression might last for years.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the volume of news coverage and social media reaction to the trip was so \u201cunprecedented\u201d that even a \u201csmall fraction of negativity becomes staggering\u201d. \u201cIt amounted to billions of hostile impressions,\u201d she said, \u201can onslaught no human brain has evolved to endure\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the Guardian<\/a> in March, Nguyen said she had put her lifelong ambition of becoming an astronaut on hold after another student raped her at university and she pursued a years-long fight for justice, which she described as \u201call-consuming\u201d. In 2019, her activism for sexual assault survivors led to Nguyen being nominated for the Nobel peace prize and in 2022, she was one of Time magazine\u2019s women of the year.<\/p>\n

The onslaught after the spaceflight made her feel like \u201ccollateral damage\u201d, Nguyen said: \u201cmy moment of justice mutilated.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my moments of deep grief this year, I reached back out to a familiar place, to her \u2013 my survivor self \u2013 who found the strength to fight. How horrible that I needed to deploy that skill once again,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Now, eight months on from realising her dream of going to space, Nguyen said the \u201cfog of grief has started to lift\u201d, and thanked those who have supported her and sent her well wishes. \u201cVietnam saved me \u2026 You all saved me,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

Nguyen, whose parents arrived in the US as refugees after fleeing Vietnam after the fall of Saigon, went on: \u201cWhen Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, bombs rained down on Vietnam. This year, when my boat refugee family looked at the sky, instead of bombs they saw the first Vietnamese woman in space.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe came on boats, and now we\u2019re on spaceships,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Despite the backlash, she said there had been \u201coverwhelming good that has come out of [the flight],\u201d including the media attention brought to her women\u2019s health research and opportunities to meet world leaders in relation to her advocacy for rape survivors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the greatest gift this holiday season that I can feel the fog lifting,\u201d Nguyen wrote. \u201cI can tell Gayle it\u2019s not going to take years.\u201d<\/p>\n

She ended her post with a photo of herself as a young student at Harvard, captioned: \u201cFor her.\u201d<\/p>\n