Star Trek’s very own William Shatner will travel to the stars.
Star Trek introduced the world to William Shatner, the man who would bring James T. Kirk to life for over 60 years. Now, the 90-year-old Shatner will have something in common with his Star Trek character that no other actor-character combination has ever had prior. Both Shatner and his character Kirk will officially have been to space.
Shatner is set to join Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin New Shepard rocket in October, according to TMZ. Shatner’s journey to the stars will make the Star Trek veteran the oldest man to ever fly into space.
The journey will last 15-minutes and will be filmed as part of a documentary that will feature the entire flight; launch sequence, preparation, and more. Right now it has no air date but it’s being shopped around to various places with at least one outlet having started negotiations for the documentary.
A dream come true for William Shatner
Bezos and Shatner will just be a few names on the flight, but no one else as of right now is known. These seats carry some hefty prices, so whoever else is on the trip when it goes up will be someone of great affluence.
The trip to space for the veteran actor has been something he’s long wanted. He’s even tried to get NASA’s attention to try and send him up but to no avail. The trip to the stars was not unexpected, as according to the Daily Beast, this was actually something that was hinted at before.
"He seemed to hint at his future out-of-this-world travels later that year during a virtual Comic-Con panel that focused on NASA’s Artemis program. “There’s a possibility that I’m going to go up for a brief moment and come back down,” he said, per Space.com. He indicated he had some concerns in light of the 1986 Challenger flight, which led to the deaths of seven astronauts."
Shatner will get to achieve a dream with this trip, and in doing so he’s essentially come full circle.