Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship…Enterprise. Its five year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.
We know William Shatner, famously, for his role as Captain James T. Kirk in the “Star Trek” TV show and movie franchise. But now, it looks like he’s finally going to be able to explore that “final frontier.”
Shatner will actually be going into space sometime in October. The actor, who is now 90 years old, will blast into space aboard Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin New Shepard rocket, according to the NY Post.
William Shatner to go to space in Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket ship https://t.co/21afcGPKLy pic.twitter.com/gIhIwLwQzs
— New York Post (@nypost) September 24, 2021
It’s not clear who’s paying for his ride — and it costs a ton of money.
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.
Bezos himself went up in space in July, along with his brother, spending about ten minutes going up over 66 miles.
Shatner will be the oldest person ever to travel into space. Previously, the oldest person was Wally Funk who was 82 when she went up. The flight wouldn’t last five years, like the mission of the Enterprise, but instead, it will run about 15 minutes. It will also be included in an upcoming documentary featuring Shatner.
How cool is this, that he will finally get into space after giving us so many images of space on his show? And that he’s doing it at 90 years old? It shows even at that age, you can still fulfill some pretty amazing dreams.
In the meantime, check out the fact that he also has a brand-new album.
“BILL” the album is OUT NOW on all platforms! This album means so much to me because it embodies real stories of my life. Bill is an autobiographical album. It’s from my ♥️ and I hope it resonates with yours. ❌⭕️‼️ https://t.co/G48EJazvqK #PPT pic.twitter.com/LPQv56z4aG
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) September 24, 2021
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