Amanda Nguyen has made history by joining Blue Origin's NS-31 mission, becoming the first Vietnamese and Southeast Asian woman to fly to space. Her presence on the all-female crew adds another milestone to a life already marked by advocacy and achievement.
Nguyen, a rape survivor, activist, TIME Magazine's 2022 Woman of the Year and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, is known for championing the rights of sexual assault survivors through the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights, passed in the United States in 2016. She is also the founder of Rise, a nonprofit organisation that fights for civil rights protections for survivors of gender-based violence.
"After my rape, I experienced a broken criminal justice system," Nguyen told UN Women. "I could accept the injustice or re-write the law, so I re-wrote it." She initiated her campaign after discovering her rape kit could be destroyed under Massachusetts law, despite a 15-year statute of limitations.
The NS-31 crew included CBS Mornings host Gayle King, singer Katy Perry, media executive Lauren Sánchez, rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, and film producer Kerianne Flynn. The flight was Blue Origin's first all-female mission since 1963 and lasted approximately 11 minutes, briefly passing the Kármán line, the internationally recognised boundary of space.
Following the capsule's return to Texas, Nguyen delivered a heartfelt message: "I just want every survivor and every person who's ever had a dream deferred to know that your dreams are valid... Even if your dreams are as wild as going to space, they matter."
Now also a partner at e.l.f Cosmetics, Nguyen, who studied astrophysics at Harvard and worked at NASA, said her journey to space was about honouring her younger self, the aspiring astronaut whose dreams were paused but not forgotten.
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