With the New Shepard capsule returned to Earth with a parachute-assisted soft landing two days ago in Texas, a gaffe has ignited online conspiracy theories on Katy Perry’s flight into space with Blue Origin, reported The Dailymail Online.

According to the report, following Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos wrenched open the hatch with a specialised tool to greet the all-female crew, some footage reportedly showed the capsule door being opened from the inside before being hastily shut.

The report added that some conspiracy theorists on the internet have seized on this strange moment and are referring to it as ‘definitive proof’ that the mission was faked.

As some theorists still believe that the Blue Origin rocket never reached space, the video shows just how tightly choreographed the staged event was supposed to be.

Few experts even claim that the Blue Origin launch was a ‘perfect storm’ for conspiracy theories.

Commenting on the latest incident, an expert on the psychology of conspiracies from the University of Nottingham, Dr Daniel Jolley said, as quoted by Dailymail Online, ‘Space is vast, complex and largely inaccessible to most people – in this context, it becomes easier for some individuals to question the official narrative.’

Here are a few comments:

One commenter wrote: “It was fake. The girls opened the door to begin with from the inside with no tools. They then waited a few minutes, and Jeff Bezos stepped up with some sort of tool and acted like he unlocked the latch.”

A second wrote, “This s*** is so fake. Watch the door be opened from the inside; then they need a tool to open it from the outside.”

A third wrote, “Can’t post this fake s*** enough. Door opens from the inside, they’re told to close it because the door can ONLY be opened by an outside person.”

“Doesn’t look like a pressurised hatch to me. More like a flimsy door,” a fourth commented.

A fifth person commented, “Pretty sure pressurised doors don’t open inwards. The capsule looks like it’s an inflatable tent and the only footage they showed was the “weightlessness” part which you can achieve in a plane.”

Why so much suspicion?

Among the main reasons experts and theorists referred to the New Shepard capsule mission as fake was the belief that the pressurised cabin shouldn’t have an inward-opening door that passengers could operate.

As per details, typical spacecraft have doors that open outwards. They also require a team of technicians working from the outside to unlock.

However, the ease with which the New Shepard capsule door was opened has ignited suspicions that it was a real space mission.

Not only this, the capsule looked almost perfectly clean and unblemished after landing, which even ignited theorists’ suspicions.

Explanations behind the conspiracy:

Some explain that the New Shepard capsule only barely made it into space, reaching a maximum altitude of 66.5 miles (107 km)—which is over the Karman Line and the official boundary of space—it was still within a very thin atmosphere and wasn’t exposed to the true vacuum of space.

This decodes the New Shepard capsule didn’t require to have extremely well-reinforced outward-opening doors like the Crew Dragon, which travelled to the International Space Station.

The report added that, since the capsule barely left the atmosphere, its return from Earth doesn’t create the heat of a typical re-entry burn that would scorch the exterior.

Meanwhile, the NS-31 mission was launched at 14:30 BST from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One, 30 miles north of Van Horn, Texas. It boarded Jeff Bezos’ fiancé Lauren Sánchez, pop star Katy Perry, CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King, film producer Kerianne Flynn, activist Amanda Nguyen, and former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe.

The New Shepard rocket carried the crew capsule just over the Karman Line after it lifted off and returned to Earth 11 minutes later.