William Shatner Is About To Boldly Go Where No 90-Year-Old Man Has Gone Before
Jeff Bezos' private space exploration company, Blue Origin, is about to break a record it set just a few months ago by making William Shatner the oldest man to explore space. News of Shatner's planned voyage to briefly leave the Earth was reported by TMZ. The entertainment news outlet wrote that the iconic actor would be joining the second crewed flight of Blue Origin's New Shepard space capsule in October.
The initial flight of New Shepard sent the internet into a frenzy after it carried Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos, former test pilot Wally Funk, and recent high school graduate Oliver Daemen into suborbital space on July 20, 2021. Funk, 82, became the oldest person to have ever visited space at that time, while Daemen, 18, was the youngest. However, if Blue Origin helps Shatner (who turned 90 in March) achieve his cosmic ambitions, he will set a new record for the oldest person to leave the Earth's atmosphere.
While many "Star Trek" fans would likely be content simply with the knowledge that one of the franchise's best known captains finally contributed to humanity's ongoing mission to explore the stars, it seems that the trip is at the center of a possible documentary. Here is what fans need to know about William Shatner's upcoming extraterrestrial journey with Blue Origin.
Shatner's trek to the stars may be part of an upcoming documentary
If everything goes according to plan, Shatner, who is best known for playing Captain James T. Kirk on "Star Trek: The Original Series," will boldly be launched into space sometime next month, per TMZ. Just as with Blue Origin's initial voyage, the New Shepard capsule is being sent on a 15-minute flight that will reach a final altitude 65 miles above the surface of the Earth, high enough to achieve weightlessness.
The report of Shatner's latest adventure also noted that the flight would be filmed for a documentary, which was at one point being shopped to buyers such as Discovery. While plans with that network never panned out, it seems like Bezos might be able to pull some strings at Amazon Studios to complete the project – he did help save "The Expanse," after all.
There are plenty of other details that still need to be sorted out for the second crewed trip of New Shepard. There is no word about who might be joining Shatner on the journey, nor was it reported whether the actor had paid for his place on the flight. The seat sold on New Shepard's first mission reportedly went for more than $20 million, which could add some overhead to the documentary's budget if Blue Origin isn't footing the bill.