Blue Origin forced to take down video after female astronaut was ‘sexualized’ by ‘hoards of men’

Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin has been forced to remove a video of a female astronaut after she was hit with a wave of sexual and misogynistic comments.

The clip featured footage of Emily Calandrelli, also known as “Space Gal,” hanging upside down in the weightlessness of the capsule as she stared out the window and said, “Oh my God, this is space.”

Thousands of internet trolls took the moment to ruin her experience by ‘sexualising’ the amateur astronaut.

One X user commented: ‘It’s not an achievement to be a woman.’

Another man asked, “Would you consider yourself the most popular woman to ever go to space?” Any other contenders?’

The messages were so vicious that they brought Calandrelli to tears as she flew home after the mission, she said in an Instagram post on Sunday.

Blue Origin removed their original video and replaced it with an edited one, Calandrelli said, but she has since reposted the video to hit back at those who tried to ruin her special moment.

Her part in this mission was historic: she was the hundredth woman to venture into space.

The video shows Calandrelli looking out the window of the New Shepherd capsule as she exclaims, “Oh my God, this is space!”

Calandrelli is an aerospace engineer, science communicator and TV host from MIT known as “Space Gal” who has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.

She and five other space tourists embarked on the ninth human test flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepherd spacecraft.

All six ‘space tourists’ paid for their seats on the rocket, although the price per ticket is not disclosed.

The rocket launched Friday from the company’s spaceport outside Van Horn, Texas. Blue Origin filmed the mission and captured powerful images of the amateur astronauts’ reactions to seeing Earth from a vantage point in space.

Online trolls, mostly men, became fixated on Calandrelli’s response.

One Threads user commented: ‘Why she’s moaning, I can’t make it inaudible.’

“This all happened while I was flying home after having the most perfect, beautiful dream-realization experience of my life,” Calandrelli wrote on Instagram.

“And instead of being on cloud nine, I’m sitting in my chair, crying, staring out the window.”

Calandrelli was chosen along with five other space tourists to board the ninth human test flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepherd spacecraft

She went on to say that she spent the entire flight texting her “space sisters” for advice, “to share anger and sadness and to get confirmation that I have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I refuse to spend a lot of time on the little guys on the internet. I feel experiences in my soul,” she added.

“I will not apologize or make you feel weird about my reaction. It’s all mine and I love it.’

As she left the flight, a flight attendant recognized her and noticed she had been crying and whispered “don’t let them dim your shine” as she left the plane, Calandrelli wrote.

“I immediately felt a sense of camaraderie with her, with all the women.”

Although Blue Origin chose to remove the video, Calandrelli reposted it on X this morning.

“Seeing our planet for the first time, a dream decades in the making,” she wrote.

‘You see so many emotions intertwined. Excitement, awe and pride, but honestly also a bit of fear and confusion.”

Clearly, the experience was deeply moving for Calandrelli, who compared it to the birth of her children upon landing at Blue Origin’s launch pad in West Texas.

“It was the same feeling I got when my children were born where I am, when I saw it for the first time,” she said.

The rocket launched Friday from the company’s spaceport outside Van Horn, Texas

The New Shepherd capsule carried the six-man crew just above the atmosphere-space boundary for several minutes before returning to Earth

Hundreds of social media users also shared messages of support for Calandrelli, praising her as an inspiration.

‘I see your joy! Well deserved, so exciting and so inspiring for women and girls everywhere,” someone commented on her post.

Several women responded to her post saying they watched the livestream of the launch with their daughters.

Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman to go into space, embarking on a solo mission in 1963. After that historic mission, it took another twenty years before a woman left Earth again.

The first American woman in space was NASA astronaut Sally Ride, who launched with four other astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-7 in 1983.

Gender inequality in American space travel remains high. Since its founding in 1958, NASA has selected 360 astronaut candidates: 299 men and just 61 women, the agency said fact sheet updated on November 12.

Although Calandrelli is not an official NASA astronaut, her historic space journey is a reminder of what women are capable of.

‘I’m so happy with this. You are such an inspiration to future generations, especially girls in STEM,” someone commented on her X post.

Blue Origin did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.