William Shatner
Bezos capsule: “Star Trek” icon should really go into space
Actor William Shatner, best known as Captain Kirk in the television series “Star Trek”, at a press conference. Shatner is supposed to really fly into space for the first time. Photo: picture alliance / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
As “Captain Kirk”, William Shatner became a “Star Trek” icon. Now the Canadian actor actually wants to go into space. The spaceship is provided by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos – a PR coup.
The “Star Trek” icon William Shatner is supposed to really fly into space for the first time.
The 90-year-old Canadian actor, who became famous above all for his role as “Captain Kirk” on the “Spaceship Enterprise”, is supposed to go on a ten-minute excursion into space with a space capsule from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin company. Shatner would become the oldest human ever to travel to space. Due to the forecast of stronger winds, the flight originally planned for Tuesday had previously been postponed to Wednesday.
It is the second manned flight of the New Shepard capsule. On the first in July, Bezos was on board himself, along with his brother Mark, an 82-year-old former US pilot and an 18-year-old Dutchman. The former NASA engineer Chris Boshuizen, the entrepreneur Glen de Vries and the deputy head of Blue Origin, Audrey Powers, will now fly with Shatner.
The participation of “Captain Kirk” as the fourth passenger is seen as a PR coup for Bezos and his company Blue Origin. Unlike Boshuizen and De Vries, Shatner did not pay for his ticket, but was invited as a “guest” by Blue Origin, reported the New York Times, citing the company.
In 1966 Shatner first took on the role of “Captain James T. Kirk” in the science fiction series “Star Trek”. During his decades-long career, the actor, who has three daughters and separated from his fourth wife in 2019, repeatedly commanded the “Starship Enterprise”.
He doesn’t have to take command in the Blue Origin space capsule – it flies largely automatically. In addition, it does not go through the “infinite expanses” of space and into “foreign galaxies”, but only for around ten minutes to around 100 kilometers above the earth above the western Texas desert, at times with weightlessness, before the reusable capsule is slowed down by large parachutes lands again. The International Aviation Association (FAI) and many other experts see 100 kilometers above the earth as the limit to space, but there are no binding international regulations.
In advance, Blue Origin published a photo of the four participants of the all excursion in blue spacesuits and a video that shows Shatner during the preparations and together with Bezos via the short message service Twitter. The adventure is “life-changing” for him, says Shatner in it. “It seems like there is a lot of interest that the fictional character” Captain Kirk “actually flies into space – so let’s go with it and enjoy it all.”