Amanda Nguyen, the Vietnamese-born astronaut who was part of the all-female Blue Origin spaceflight, has spoken openly about her depression after experiencing a “tsunami of harassment” following her journey to become the first Vietnamese woman to walk in space.
Amanda Nguyen, 34, was part of the historic 11-minute flight in April, along with singer Katy Perry, journalist Gayle King and Lauren Sánchez, the wife of Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, according to The Guardian.
Their trip caused numerous reactions in the public space and was criticized including for its impact on the environment and for its usefulness.
Amanda is a civil rights activist for sexual assault survivors as well as a bioastronautics researcher.
In a message posted on Instagram, she spoke about the reactions after the flight and claims that it made her professional achievements and dreams “buried under an avalanche of misogyny”.
She also added that her depression “it could take many years.”
She said the volume of news and social media reactions to the trip was so “unprecedented“, so that even “a little bit of negativity becomes overwhelming.”
“It reached billions of hostile impressions,” she said, “an attack that no human brain has evolved to withstand”she added.
“I didn’t leave Texas for a week, unable to get out of bed. A month later, when a senior Blue Origin employee called me, I had to hang up because I couldn’t talk because of the tears.”
On April 11, Blue Origin sent six women into space on a historic mission. The all-female crew, consisting of singer Katie Perry, former journalist and Jeff Bezos’ fiancee Lauren Sanchez, journalist and author Gayle King, human rights activist Amanda Nguyen, aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe and filmmaker Kerianne Flynn, flew in the New Shephard 31 rocket above the edge of space, about 100 kilometers above Earth.
On their return, the astronauts were happy and amazed.
