NASA Calls Out Instagram ‘Astronaut’ Claiming She’s Headed to Space

A 22-year-old influencer said she’s headed to space. Moon, Mars, private missions—the works. NASA quickly stepped in to say: No. No, she’s not.

Laysa Peixoto, a Brazilian tech creator with 150K followers and a NASA-branded jumpsuit, announced via Instagram that she was “officially an astronaut” in the Class of 2025. In the caption, she beamed about joining the private space company Titans Space for a 2029 mission allegedly led by retired NASA astronaut Bill McArthur. “It is an honor to carry the Brazilian flag with me as the first Brazilian woman to cross that border,” she wrote.

The post featured her in a NASA jacket with the Empire State Building behind her. And while she didn’t explicitly say NASA selected her, it was heavy on the space agency aesthetic. That’s where the problem starts.

NASA clapped back hard. “This individual is not a NASA employee, principal investigator, or astronaut candidate,” the agency told multiple outlets, adding that it would be “inappropriate to claim NASA affiliation” based on her previous participation in a student workshop called L’SPACE—basically a space-themed academic extracurricular.

Instagram “Astronaut” Says She’s Headed to Space—NASA Says Absolutely Not

To make things even less true, Titans Space doesn’t have a license to conduct manned flights. Their program offers a $1 million “Inaugural Astronaut” package—a five-hour trip and three hours in zero gravity. In their last press release shared by Daily Mail, there was no mention of Peixoto among the confirmed flight crew. Her team insists that’s just outdated info.

The influencer is still doubling down. “Maybe many of you didn’t get a chance to read what I said,” she posted Thursday. “At no time is there a mention of NASA or that I would be an astronaut for the agency.”

But the post now carries an “edited” label. Her now-deleted LinkedIn once claimed a master’s from Columbia (which the school denied), a stint at NASA at age 19, and even affiliation with the Max Planck Society. Her old Brazilian university says she was dismissed in 2023 for failing to re-enroll.

Social media, of course, didn’t miss a beat. “Anyone who saw a girl in a space camp jumpsuit claiming to be a lead astronaut researcher deserves to be fooled,” one user posted.

Still, there’s something undeniably fascinating about someone manifesting this hard. If you’re going to fake something, why not shoot for the Moon—literally?