William Shatner and three others launch 65 miles above Earth on Blue Origin’s New Shepard

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Star Trek’s William Shatner has become the oldest person in space at the age of 90 – and he’s come back with one message: ‘Everybody in the world needs to see this.’ 

Shatner, who is famed for his role as Captain Kirk in the 1960s sci-fi series, and newly minted astronauts Chris Boshuizen, Glen de Vries and Audrey Powers, stepped out of the New Shepard’s iconic white capsule in West Texas following their first mission to the final frontier, where they spent three minutes in zero-gravity after reaching an altitude of 351,186 feet and a velocity of 2,235mph. 

‘Hello, astronauts. Welcome to Earth!’ Jeff Bezos said as he opened the hatch of the New Shepard capsule, named for the first American in space, Alan Shepard. 

As a shaky Shatner emerged from the capsule, he instantly wrapped his arms around the Blue Origin and Amazon founder. The actor said he was struck by the vulnerability of Earth and the relative sliver of its atmosphere.

‘Everybody in the world needs to do this,’ he said. ‘To see the blue color whip by and now you’re staring into blackness, that’s the thing. The covering of blue, this sheath, this blanket, this comforter of blue that we have around, we say, ‘Oh, that’s blue sky.’ And then suddenly you shoot through it all, and you’re looking into blackness, into black ugliness.’

‘As you look down, there’s your blue down there with the black up there. There is Mother Earth and comfort and there is — is there death? I don’t know. Is that the way death is?’

Breaking into tears, Shatner then told Bezos: ‘I’m so filled with emotion with what just happened. I hope I never recover from this.’

‘It’s so much larger than me and life, and it hasn’t got anything to do with the little green hand or the little blue orb. 

The crew was met by family and friends when they put their boots back on the ground, and enjoyed champagne showers to celebrate. 

‘You have done something,’ an exhilarated Shatner told Bezos. ‘What you have given me is the most profound experience. Unbelievable.’

As the actor merged science fiction with reality with his historic space flight, he said that going from the blue sky to the blackness of space was a moving experience that made him wonder, ‘Is that the way death is?’  

‘It was so moving. This experience is something unbelievable. My stomach went up. And what you see down there is light. It has to do with the emotion and the suddenness of life and death,’ he said. 

Shatner added that the the return to Earth was more jolting than his training led him to expect and made him wonder whether he was going to make it home alive.

‘Everything is much more powerful,’ he said. ‘Bang, this thing hits. That wasn’t anything like the simulator. … Am I going to be able to survive the G-forces? Am I going to be able to survive it?’

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Shatner became the oldest person in space, eclipsing the previous record – set by Wally Funk, 82, on a similar jaunt on a Bezos spaceship in July – by eight years. 

The flight also included about three minutes of weightlessness and a view of the curvature of the Earth. 

Blue Origin said Shatner and the rest of the crew met all the medical and physical requirements, including the ability to hustle up and down several flights of steps at the launch tower. Passengers are subjected to nearly 6 G’s, or six times the force of Earth’s gravity, as the capsule returns to Earth. 

Bezos is a huge ‘Star Trek’ fan – the Amazon founder had a cameo as an alien in one of the later ‘Star Trek’ movies – and Shatner rode free as his invited guest. 

Sci-fi fans reveled in the opportunity to see the man best known as Captain James T. Kirk of the starship Enterprise boldly go where no actor has gone before.

Shatner’s achievement caused worlds to collide, or at least permitting parallel universes to coexist – the utopian spacefaring vision of ‘Star Trek’ and the evolving, increasingly commercial spot that space holds in the American psyche. 

‘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 at lift off said before liftoff. She said she, like so many others, was drawn to the space business by shows like ‘Star Trek.’  

The Blue Origin founder also saw the crew through much of today’s pre-flight events: from driving them to the launch tower to greeting each upon post flight.  

The crew launched aboard Blue Origin’s 60-foot-tall New Shepard rocket from the company’s Launch Site One in Van Horn, Texas at 10:49am  ET.

‘Ladies and gentleman it is time to launch this rocket. Godspeed New Shepard,’ Cortese said at lift off.

The four members soared more 65 miles above Earth’s surface within a little over three minutes of the rocket launching. 

‘Welcome to space,’ Cortese said from the ground.

The livestream showed the white capsule hanging in the darkness of space, while the four members float in zero-gravity for three minutes.   

‘That was unlike anything they described,’ Shatner could be heard saying on the flight livestream just before landing. 

The capsule then begun its journey back to Earth, with three parachutes deploying to guide the craft for a soft landing in the Texas desert. 

The entire trip lasted just 10 minutes and 17 seconds, but it seems the crew will remember the experience for a lifetime.   

Shatner and his crewmates, dressed in their striking blue flight suits, were not required to wear helmets, with Blue Origin saying it wanted its passengers to have an unencumbered view of space.

All four members received a special challenge coin shortly after arriving at the training center earlier this morning.

The coin represents belonging and the achievement of something great and is only awarded to astronauts who passed training and are set to fly on a spacecraft. 

The team climbed the tower about 30 minutes before launch and each rung a hanging silver bell before walking through a tunnel on the way to the launch capsule, which says above it ‘light this candle.’ 

NASA sent best wishes ahead of the flight, tweeting: ‘You are, and always shall be, our friend.’ 

And SpaceX CEO Elon Musk had a special message for William Shatner, honoring the actor who will become the oldest person in space.

Shatner going into space is ‘the most badass thing I think I’ve ever seen,’ said Joseph Barra, a bartender who helped cater the launch week festivities. ‘William Shatner is setting the bar for what a 90-year-old man can do.’

The flight comes as the space tourism industry finally takes off, with passengers joyriding aboard ships built and operated by some of the richest men in the world.

This is the second crewed flight conducted by the Jeff Bezos-owned company – the first took off on July 20 and Bezos himself was along for the ride.

However, Wednesday’s mission gained just as much attention as Shatner made a dream come true for millions who were inspired by the sci-fi television show. 

As an actor, Shatner was synonymous with space voyages. During the opening credits of each episode of the series, he called space ‘the final frontier’ and promised ‘to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.’

Shatner said there is both irony and symmetry to his space trip, having played a space explorer for decades and now actually becoming one.

‘Having played the role of Captain Kirk everybody assigns the knowledge that a futuristic astronaut would have, but I’ve always been consumed with curiosity and it is the adventure I feel so good doing,’ Shatner said in a video shared by Blue Origin Tuesday.   

Shatner, also known for his role as lawyer Denny Crane in ‘Boston Legal,’ among many others, has spoken in the past about an at-times difficult relationship with Star Trek and its fan culture.

But in recent years, the actor has leaned into the fame brought about by his most famous role.

‘It looks like there’s a great deal of curiosity in this fictional character, Captain Kirk,’ he said in a video released by Blue Origin.

Shatner’s participation in the flight has helped generate publicity for Blue Origin as it competes against two billionaire-backed rivals – Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic- to attract customers willing to pay large sums to experience spaceflight.  

The three other individuals strapped inside the capsule also have a strong connection with space. 

Powers, who is Blue Origin’s vice president of mission and flight operations, has spent years watching missions soar into space and can now check a spaceflight off her bucket list. 

‘I think I reached a certain age when I had given up on the idea that I would go to space,’ she said in a video clip.

‘In my role in mission flight operations, we were waiting to hear who the fourth astronaut was.’

Powers received a phone call from Michael Edmonds, a colleague, and told her: ‘On behalf of Jeff and the senior leadership we’d like you to represent team Blue and fly as the fourth astronaut.’

Blue Origin has not confirmed if Powers and Shatner paid for a seat, or the experience was gifted, but it is sure the other two passengers did.

Boshuizen, who has an estimated net worth approaching $30 million, was also the Space Mission Architect at NASA’s Ames Research Center between 2008 and 2012.

During this time he invented the Phonesat, which is a satellite built from a smartphone.

‘I’ve worked in space industry my entire life and I am excited the door is finally opening,’ Boshuizen said during a recent interview with Good Morning America (GMA). 

‘I think we will look back at this day 50 years from now and go this was the year the human race started going to space.’

de Vries, co-founder of Medidata, said the spot on the New Shepard is a ‘dream come true.’

‘This is how innovation happens,’ he told GMA’s host TJ Holmes.

‘I lived in it healthcare and life sciences when you think about an industry being created and the opportunity for us to fuel that industry, as Chris was saying this is the beginning of a new time for space.

‘We are on the beginning of a curve that is just going to blast off.’ 

Boshuizen and Vries will bring the company’s total number of paying customers to three, after Dutch teen Oliver Daemen became the first during the first flight on July 20. 

Bezos is sending several pieces of Star Trek artwork and ‘home-made toys’, that he created when he was nine, into space with actor William Shatner on the Blue Origin New Shepard rocket.

Bezos took to Instagram to announce the paper toys would be going up on the next rocket launch, adding he ‘made these tricorders and communicator to play Star Trek with my friends.’

His mother saved them for 48 years and dug them out a week before the launch, prompting Bezos to ask Shatner to take them with him into space, adding ‘please don’t judge me for the artwork. Thank you, Bill!’

One Tuesday, lead flight director, Nick Patrick, said that the crew completed their first day of training on Sunday. They also spent yesterday doing launch training.

‘The training itself was designed to do three things for our astronauts,’ Patrick said during a video interview.

‘The first thing is it’s designed to train them on the safety systems that we have onboard the crew capsule and the expected responses from the crew if we were to have an emergency.’

The second is to prepare the crew for the unexpected aspects of spaceflight such as strange noises, bumps and accelerations, Patrick explained. 

The third part of training teaches the crew how to behave in zero-gravity inside the cabin without colliding with their flight mates, he continued. 

‘Today’s crew represented both dreamers and builders. We had the honor of flying our very own Audrey Powers, Vice President of New Shepard Operations, who fulfilled a lifelong dream to go to space and has been an integral part of building New Shepard,’ Blue Origin shared in a statement.

‘Our two customers, Chris Boshuizen and Glen de Vries, have built their own successful ventures and have now realized their own dreams of space travel.’

‘And, as everyone knows, William Shatner has played an important role in describing and imagining the wonders of universe and inspired many of us to pursue a career in the space industry,’ said Bob Smith, CEO Blue Origin. ‘This flight was another step forward in flying astronauts safely and often. It’s an incredible team and we are just getting started.’