Sending Lady Gaga to Space: a Social Justice Perspective

I was reading about paranormal stuff online and I stumbled across this article about British singstress Sarah Brightman planning a trip to space, costing $35M. She wants to be the first professional artist to sing in space. But not if Lady Gaga beats her to it.

Now, let me pause for a second so you guys can finish with your hilarious jokes about sending spacy Lady Gaga off on a one way trip to space.

...

Good, alright then:

I read the comments on these articles and several of them talk about how wasteful it is to send people like Brightman or Gaga on a spacetrip. What's the point, ask the commentators. These people are unable to contribute anything to humanity, their trips are cheap marketing tricks or simple ego-stroking, signs of a false sense of entitlement, many think. But it's their money, they are paying for it fair and square... it's capitalism, right?

Fair enough. Personally I had never heard of Brightman and I kind of like Lady Gaga, but I understand that some may think they are overrated. And to be honest those millions could be put to better use.

But I wondered if gender was part of the reason for the hating on these songbirds, so I looked up articles on two male celebrities who have already completed their voyages: billionaire super-clown Guy Laliberté (he runs Circue de Soleil) and legendary video game-developer Richard Garriott, both as clueless when it comes to space science as Brightman and Gaga (well, Garriott is a programmer I guess, that's sort of sciency). Would the masses be less hard on them simply because they are male, and older? I couldn't be bothered to actually check this, but I sort of suspect it.

Then there is Sir Richard Branson: real life bona-fide knight, adventurer and captain of industry. Arguably he has more cred than any of the others (technically a Lady ranks higher than a knight in the British nobility, but Gaga is not officially endorsed by the Queen, like Branson is), I think people would easily accept the idea of him going. But he would be just as useless in space as Lady Gaga or Brightman, honestly. Actually it would be even more pointless. What is he going to do there, come up with a new business idea? At least an artist like Laliberté could look down on this blue sphere of ours and be inspired to coreograph even more pretentious acrobatics or something.

So, my question is this: who of these do you think is most worthy of going to space and why?

P.S: Apparently Bransons company Virgin Galactic offered William Shatner (Captain Kirk from Star Trek) a place on one of the planned flights. The aging Shatner refused, to the outrage of millions of nerds worldwide. But does he have the right to NOT go to space? I just love the idea of an 80+ year old Shatner feebly protesting, shouting and kicking his legs as he is forcibly strapped down in the cockpit and sent off to boldly go where only french clowns and meat-wearing women have gone before.

Oh boy. Once Madonna hears about this, "to the moon, Alice". She'll be camped out at the Russian launch site with her checkbook and video cam in hand.

So finally we have a new space race. Who will be the first songbird in space? If it were me I'd send Sinead O'Connor (seriously, not to get rid of her, to have her sing).

I think ''most worthy of going to Space'' is sort of a misleading question.

First it has to be determined if it is a good thing or not. Is it safe, it has physical effects that aren't great, they might never return etc, versus chance of a lifetime, few humans have done it, spectacular scenery etc.

I happen to think the likes of Gaga, Miley Cyrus are too attention seeking for my liking, anything for looking controversial but really they are just little girls getting more publicly naked than they should so they shouldn't expect respect for being clever or worthwhile, similarly Bieber etc just paid for looking 'pretty', it isn't a worthy achievement.

Therefore, I consider them not any more worthy of a 'treat' to space than anyone else but maybe more worthy of a wake up call.

But if they are paying for it then that is their choice, whether it is a treat or a risk.

If anything would do it . That would definetly be cause for an alien invasion of earth in response to any of them being launched into space as it would be viewed as an act of war by the aliens ..

Note to self .. double stockpile of beer before invasion ..

This is a wonderful idea!!
As long as they aim at the sun. They should give free rides to Miley, Gaga, Beiber, every rapper and several [ who we kiddin' ] All of Congress and the Senate. Make Obama the pilot. Holder as co pilot. Just strap Pelosi in somewhere.

Put her on a rocket with gold painted macaroni noodles glued to the outside.

I would send Blue Oyster Cult up there first, they are appropriately loud and have been singing about space since the 70's.

David Bowie

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, aka Lady Gaga, IMHO is very talented and has a beautiful voice. Why she hides behind the godawful makeup and disguises is beyond me.

Her singing a cappella on the ISS, i think, would be very nice. She couldn't sing very well on Branson's space plane, not enough room.

I don't see why not, its their money to spend how they choose to spend it. In a hundred years, a scenic trip to Jupiter and back won't be a big deal. Space is no more sacred than a drive across country.

I wouldn't go personally. I imagine the smell of the space craft gets pretty bad after several days in space.

hey if the rocket doesn't come back then I'm all good with sending lady gaga into space.


Can we point it toward the sun?

I think they should all bravely be volunteered to populate the first permanent Mars colony. I think we should send Bieber, Kimye and all of Kim's sisters, Lady Gaga, Tom Cruise (spiritual advisor), Honey Boo-Boo, Joel Osteen (another spiritual advisor), J-Lo, Ben Affleck (no one replaces Bale as Batman), Leonardo DiCaprio, Al Gore (terra-forming), all of Congress, MIchael Mann (more terra-forming), Oprah, Dr. Oz (medical), Dr. Phil, Obama and GW and Clinton ... heck all the living presidents, the Miami Heat, the San Francisco '49ers, the New York Yankees, all the Miss America contestants, Joan Rivers, Ru Paul, and the Taco Bell Chihuahua.

It seems odd to question Richard Branson's "entitlement" to go into space, considering he actually is heavily involved in promoting space travel, and could likely fly there on a ship he owns.

Past that, if these entertainers are traveling via commercial space craft I'm not sure what it matters who has the "right" to go into space since it's a commercial venture. I sure as hell don't want a single penny of any funding that could go towards research spent on sending pop idols into space, unless it was to test lack of oxygen and space environment on live human subjects.

If they are mucking up legitimate scientific space programs with their PR BS they need to GTFO, but if they are just hopping aboard a commercial space flight (whenever that happens) I'm not sure how it's different than anybody else doing it. In other words, nobody's business.

Depends on what you mean by social justice. It's only social justice to us if they leave her there. She's a weirdo and not that talented.I don't consider pop stars talented, I consider real musicians who play actual instruments talented.

I hope they set up a Pay Per View for whomever goes first, and any that follow
An excellent way to help support the commercial space industry!

I'm all for it.

And ya know what, I'd watch it no matter who it was, just for the spectacle of the thing

Although NASA already did singing in space...that's not the point:
www.youtube.com...