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William Shatner hopes for no ‘gremlins’ on launch
Famed “Star Trek” William Shatner says he’s hoping to see magnificent views of Earth from space when he launches with Blue Origin next week. The only thing he doesn’t want to see? Gremlins.
“I plan to be looking out the window with my nose pressed against window,” Shatner said in a video released by Blue Origin featuring an interview with the actor and the company’s Audrey Powers, who will also launch on the flight. “The only think I don’t want to see is a little gremlin looking back at me,” he added with a smile.
Shatner’s joke referenced the iconic 1963 episode of “The Twilight Zone” called “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” in which Shatner portrayed a passenger on a commercial flight who sees a gremlin on the wing of the plane.
Powers said she wasn’t sure what she was excited for more: launching into space with Captain Kirk of Star Trek or launching with lawyer Denny Crane of Boston Legal, both roles portrayed by Shatner.
“I plan to be spending the majority of my time looking out the window,” she said.
Shatner and Powers will launch on Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft from the company’s Launch Site One near Van Horn, Texas. They will fly with two paying passengers: Chris Boshuizen, co-founder of the Earth-observation company Planet, and Glen de Vries, co-founder of the medical software company Medidata Solutions.
Shatner said he hopes to use his experience to write a new song about his love of Earth to be included on his next album. His most recent spoken word album “Bill” was released last month.
Shatner: “I’m terrified.”
To fans at New York Comic Con, “Star Trek” actor William Shatner admitted to fans that he’s getting some preflight jitters about his Tuesday jaunt to suborbital space.
“I’m terrified,” Shatner said. “I know!…I’m Captain bloody Kirk and I’m terrified!”
He also told fans how he got his seat. Read the full story here.
William Shatner to be oldest person in space
William Shatner is about to set a world record.
When the 90-year-old actor launches on a suborbital spaceflight on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket next week, he will become the oldest person ever to fly in space. He’ll beat Wally Funk, who at 87 just set the latest record in July on Blue Origin’s First Human Flight mission with Jeff Bezos.
Funk snagged the title from the late astronaut John Glenn, one of NASA’s original seven Project Mercury astronauts, who was the first American to orbit Earth in 1962. He set the oldest person in space record in 1998 when, at age 77 and while still serving as a U.S. senator, he launched on NASA’s space shuttle Discovery on the STS-95 mission. G
William Shatner talks space trip with Today Show
“I’m going to see the vastness of space and the extraordinary miracle of our earth and how fragile it is.”@WilliamShatner, known for playing Captain Kirk in “Star Trek,” joins us to talk about his upcoming historic mission to space. pic.twitter.com/D7qvhA4rTbOctober 5, 2021
William Shatner is weighing in on his upcoming launch into space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket next week, and apparently the 90-year-old Trek actor is thrilled.
“We talk about space and what weightless conditions are, the enormity of the universe and the absolute jewel of a little thing we call the Earth by comparison,” Shatner told NBC’s Today Show this morning. “I’m going to feel that with the same enormity that I felt this electrical storm last night.”
You can watch the interview above, courtesy of the Today Show.
Shatner will launch on a suborbital flight aboard New Shepard on Oct. 12 from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One near Van Horn, Texas. He will fly with three other passengers, including two paying customers for Blue Origin. The flight will make Shatner the oldest person to fly in space.
William Shatner to launch on Blue Origin’s New Shepard
Captain Kirk is headed to space.
William Shatner, the 90-year-old actor who starred as Captain Kirk on “Star Trek: The Original Series,” will launch on a suborbital spaceflight aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft on Oct. 12, 2021, the company announced today (Oct. 4).
Shatner, whose flight was hinted at last month by TMZ, is officially launching on Blue Origin‘s second crewed spaceflight. Liftoff is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT) from the company’s Launch Site One in West Texas near the town of Van Horn. He will become the oldest person ever to fly in space with the mission.
Star Trek streaming guide: Where to watch the Star Trek movies and TV shows online
Joining Shatner on New Shepard will be: Audrey Powers, Blue Origin’s vice president of missions and flight operations; Chris Boshuizen, co-founder of Earth observation company Planet Labs, and Glen de Vries, vice chair for life sciences and healthcare at French software company Dassault Systèmes. Shatner and Powers were announced as crewmembers today, while Boshuizen and de Vries were announced on Sept. 27.
Related: Star Trek movies, ranked worst to best
The upcoming flight comes less than three months after Blue Origin’s First Human Flight mission, which launched Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark, 82-year-old Wally Funk and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen on a suborbital flight on July 20. That mission set four Guinness World Records for the oldest person to fly in space (Funk), the youngest person to fly in space (Daemen), the first siblings to launch into space together and the first paying passenger to launch into space (Daemen, whose father paid for the trip), according to a GWR statement on Friday (Oct. 1).
Shatner’s flight follows the 55th anniversary of “Star Trek,” which debuted on TV on Sept. 8, 1966, and on the heels of the actor’s latest album “Bill,” an autobiographical collection of spoken word pieces.
My album “BILL” is available now! 🙌🏻 Not only is this entire album important to me but “Black Horse” 🐎 is quite significant. It’s a story of my love for horses, my relationship with my champion, and how his life affected me. Check out https://t.co/G48EJazvqK pic.twitter.com/iujVSqRFVFSeptember 24, 2021
We’ll be posting updates of Shatner’s launch into space, landing and post-flight celebrations here throughout the mission, so be sure to check back for updates. In the meantime, here’s a recap of Blue Origin’s First Human Flight mission.
