This is the American actor William Shatner. He is 90 years old. He is known for his iconic role in the television series ‘Star Trek’ (‘Star Trek’). He played Captain James Kirk. Well: Captain Kirk finally went into space.
10 minutes of travel
He became the oldest person to reach outer space as a tourist. He did it with the space firm Blue Origin. “I’m so full of excitement about what just happened. It’s extraordinary, extraordinary. I hope I can hold on to what I’m feeling now. I don’t want to lose it. It’s so much bigger than me and life,” Shatner said upon returning to Earth on Oct. 12.
The nonagenarian actor warmly greeted Blue Origin owner Jeff Bezos. He thanked him, “What you gave is the most profound experience I can imagine.”
Shatner and three others took off in the desert in the state of Texas. The suborbital flight lasted 10 minutes. And included several minutes of weightless hovering at about 60 miles altitude. It is widely considered the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space.
Life experience
The video footage showed the crew capsule separated from the rocket. It was floating in space. Then the velocity slowed to zero. Then, it began a controlled rocket-slowed descent. The fall ended by suspending itself from three parachutes.
“You look down. There’s the blue down there and the black up there. There’s mother earth and there’s comfort, and there’s, is there death? I don’t know, but is it death? Is that what death is? (…) It was so moving… this experience was an incredible thing,” Shatner said while being interviewed by Bezos.
The actor described the sky as a “blue quilt that we have all around us”. Captain Kirk finally traveled to space in real life. He had done it countless times in fiction. He was accompanied on this trip by Blue Origin vice president Audrey Powers. Also the co-founder of Earth imaging satellite company Planet, Chris Boshuizen. Rounding out the team was French health care executive Glen de Vries.
