To oldly go: ‘Star Trek’ actor William Shatner becomes the first 90-year-old space traveller
Star Trek actor William Shatner became the oldest person to fly into space on an 11-minute flight yesterday.
Shatner, 90, who played Captain James T Kirk in the television and film series, joined three other passengers on Blue Origin’s second suborbital tourism flight.
The space company is run by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who is a Star Trek fan. He shook hands with each of the crew as they boarded the rocket and closed the door to the capsule.
The other crew members, all civilians, were former Nasa engineer Chris Boshuizen, clinical research entrepreneur Glen de Vries and Blue Origin vice president and engineer Audrey Powers.
The autonomous New Shepard rocket lifted off shortly after 6pm GST, soared into the clear skies over western Texas and past the Karman Line at an altitude of 100 kilometres – an internationally recognised boundary for the beginning of space.
The astronauts experienced about three to four minutes of weightlessness on their brief flight before the capsule touched down in the desert under parachute canopies.
“Hello astronauts, welcome to Earth!” Mr Bezos said after unsealing the capsule door.
Shatner snatched the record of oldest person to fly to space from female aviation pioneer Wally Funk, 82, who flew on Blue Origin’s first passenger flight in July.
After clambering out of the capsule, he told Mr Bezos: “Everybody in the world needs to do this. Everybody in the world needs to see – it was unbelievable.”
He described the trip as similar to experiencing the difference between life and death, with the blue sky turning black as the rocket climbed higher.
“I’m so filled with emotion about what just happened. I hope I never recover from this – I hope I can maintain what I feel now. It’s so much larger than me,” he said.
During the opening credits of each Star Trek episode, his character called space “the final frontier” and promised “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no man has gone before”.
“Having played the role of Captain Kirk … assigns me the knowledge that a futuristic astronaut would have, but I’ve always been consumed with curiosity,” Shatner said before the flight.
“We’re just at the beginning – but how miraculous that beginning is, how extraordinary it is to be part of that beginning.”
For many space enthusiasts, Shatner’s voyage is fitting for a man whose character inspired generations of astronauts, scientists and engineers.
“This is a pinch-me moment for all of us to see Captain James Tiberius Kirk go to space,” Blue Origin launch commentator Jacki Cortese said before lift-off.
Shatner’s participation in the flight helped to generate publicity for Blue Origin as it competes with rival companies Virgin Galactic and SpaceX, both of which have flown paying customers to space in recent months.
Virgin Galactic and its founder, British billionaire Richard Branson, beat Blue Origin to the honour of sending the first tourists into space by days in a new kind of space race in the private sector.
Mr Bezos was among the four people on Blue Origin’s maiden space tourism flight, a trip to the edge of space and back on July 20 that lasted 10 minutes and 10 seconds.