William Shatner, 90, Set to Be Oldest Man Shot Into Space
THE FINAL FRONTIER
Shatner’s flight will turn him into a real-life Captain Kirk.
Updated Sep. 24, 2021 6:55PM ET / Published Sep. 24, 2021 3:31PM ET
Captain Kirk is truly headed to space... at 90.
William Shatner is set to board Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin New Shepard rocket next month, according to TMZ, becoming the oldest man to ever fly into space. The 15-minute flight, and the run-up to it, are being filmed for a documentary that’s currently being shopped to a number of outlets, with one deal reportedly in negotiations.
It’s unknown who else will be aboard the mission, and it’s unclear how much the Star Trek star had to pay to join the intergalactic crew (the last flight’s final seat went for over $20 million at auction). The rocket was previously launched in July with four passengers, including Bezos and his brother.
Shatner has not been shy about his desire to fly into outer space. In May of last year, he tweeted out a mocked-up image of him in an astronaut suit, encouraging NASA to send him out. “BTW @NASA - just in case; the suit does fit!” he wrote.
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.
While Shatner’s body may be flying into space for the first time, his name has already preceded him. NASA’s InSight Mars rover was equipped with two microchips embedded with 2.4 million names—one of them Shatner’s—before its 2018 launch.
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