The Star Trek alum, 90, became the oldest person to ever reach the edge of space — the Kármán line, which is 62 miles above Earth — on Wednesday when he traveled on Blue Origin’s New Shepard 4 for the 10-minute commercial flight.
Blue Origin rocket with ‘Star Trek’ actor William Shatner travels to space
William Shatner, who played Captain James T. Kirk in the “Star Trek” television series and movies, launched into space with three other crew members aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard 4 spacecraft. At 90 years old, Shatner became the oldest person to travel to space.
Shatner was emotional after he landed, saying, “Everybody in the world needs to do this… It was so moving.”
Shatner teared up telling Amazon/Blue Origin owner Jeff Bezos, “What you have given me is the most profound experience. I’m so filled with emotion about what just happened. It’s extraordinary. Extraordinary.”
He continued, “I hope I never recover from this. I hope that I can maintain what I feel now. I don’t want to lose it. It’s so much larger than me — and life.”
After a short delay, the rocket took off at 10:50 a.m. ET. The crew landed at about 11, giving the thumbs up that they were all OK.
“So exciting to have sent Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner, to space,” said Ariane Cornell, the host of the official Blue Origin live stream.
Shatner was on board with Blue Origin’s VP of mission and flight operations, Audrey Powers, and two paying customers: Glen de Vries, a co-founder of the medical research platform Medidata Solutions, and Chris Boshuizen, a NASA researcher turned tech entrepreneur.
While Shatner was a guest of Bezos, de Vries and Boshuizen reportedly paid $250,000 each.
