Gayle King hits back at space flight criticism

Gayle King has hit back at criticism of her recent trip to outer space.

The 70-year-old broadcaster was part of a six-women crew that travelled to space this week as part of Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin organisation.

The trip has been slammed by some critics - with many suggesting that the entire enterprise appeared to achieve nothing.

King has hit back at the criticism, telling Extra, "I was one of those people before I went on this flight and before I became educated on space. 'Why are we spending so much money in space when there's so much to do here on Earth?'...

"But when I look at what Blue Origin does, what their intention is to figure out a way to harness the waste here and figure out a way to put it in space, to make the planet Earth a better place, and we use space technology all the time. Whether it's your GPS, whether it's your satellite, that doesn't just happen. Every time a flight goes up, they get some type of information."

She continued, "Two of the astronauts - I still have a hard time calling myself an astronaut - but two of the astronauts on board, one is a rocket scientist, one is an astrophysicist-activist, were actually doing experiments. But every time one of those goes up, you get some information that can be used for something else."

She added, "I wish people would do more due diligence. And then my question is, 'Have y'all been to space? Have you been in space?' Go to space or go to Blue Origin and see what they do and how they do and then come back and say, 'This is a terrible thing.'

"Is it expensive? Yes. But one of the things they're trying to do, if you get enough people who are interested, it doesn't have to be that expensive."