Even though actor William Shatner – unlike the space faring starship captain that he played 50 years ago – had never been to space, will his upcoming suborbital flight fulfill a “to boldly go” promise?
By: Ringo Bones
Unlike, Lt. Mae Jemison, who was actually a NASA astronaut who made a guest appearance on Star Trek: The Next Generation back in the early 1990s was the only person, so far, who was actually been to space via a NASA space shuttle mission; William Shatner, the famed actor who played the original Captain James T. Kirk of the original Star Trek TV series back in 1966 to 1968 and the subsequent motion picture franchise has never been to space. But this coming October 12, 2021, it could all change. Captain Kirk will be actually going to boldly going to where no main Star Trek actor has gone before.
At age 90, William Shatner will be the oldest person to experience the weightless conditions of near orbital space. His scheduled to fly on the New Shepard, one of the first spacecraft specifically designed for space tourism by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Back in July 2021, Wally Funk, one of NASA’s women astronaut trainees and part of the original Mercury 13 was previously the oldest person at 82 years of age to travel to space after she was denied by NASA back in the 1960s because of her gender. Before Shatner and Funk, it was the late Senator John Glenn, who at 77 years of age back in 1998, was the oldest person to go to space back in October 29, 1998 on the STS-95 mission of the Space Shuttle Discovery.
The October 12 flight will have Shatner joined by two other paying customers: Chris Boshuizen, a co-founder of the satellite imagery firm Planet Labs, and Glen de Vries, a co-founder of the clinical research software Medidata and the fourth passenger will be Audrey Powers, the vice president of Blue Origin. Even though it is only a sub-orbital space tourism flight, William Shatner – aka Captain James T. Kirk – actually going to space, has Star Trek fans the world over experiencing a collective sense of joy even if it is only on the phallic-shaped Blue Origin New Shepard space vehicle instead of an Alcubierre style warp-capable spacecraft.
