Shatner will fly to space aboard Blue Origin rocket
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Captain Kirk is rocketing into space next week — boldly going where no other sci-fi actors have gone.
Jeff Bezos' space travel company, Blue Origin, announced Monday that "Star Trek" actor William Shatner will blast off from West Texas on Oct. 12.
"Yes, it's true; I'm going to be a 'rocket man!'" the 90-year-old tweeted. He added: "It's never too late to experience new things."
Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is a huge fan of the sci-fi series and even had a cameo as a highranking alien in the 2016 film "Star Trek Beyond." His rocket company invited Shatner to fly as its guest.
Shatner will become the oldest person to go to space. He'll join three others — two of them paying customers — aboard a Blue Origin capsule. He would have been the first actor in space if Russia weren't launching an actress and a film director to the International Space Station on Tuesday for almost two weeks of moviemaking.
Shatner's flight, by comparison, will last just 10 minutes and reach no higher than about 66 miles (106 kilometers).
The capsule will parachute back to the desert floor, not far from where it took off.
With flights short or long, space tourism is picking up steam fast.
Virgin Galactic carried founder Richard Branson to the edge of space with five others in July, followed nine days later by Bezos' space hop. Elon Musk's SpaceX, meanwhile, launched its first private crew last month — a Pennsylvania entrepreneur who bought the three-day flight and took along two contest winners and a cancer survivor.
Virgin Galactic's ship launches from an airplane and requires two pilots. Blue Origin and SpaceX's capsules are fully automated, but the passengers must pass medical screenings and, among other things, be able to quickly climb several flights of steps at the launch tower to get to the capsule — or out of it in an emergency.