William Shatner is following in the footsteps of Captain Kirk by flying into space, but it won't be the Enterprise that he'll be departing in but Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket ship. The sci-fi actor will boldly go where no one his age has gone before as the oldest person ever to venture into space.
Shatner, who played Capt. James T. Kirk, on the iconic series Star Trek, will reportedly take his real-life voyage in October. He's set to break the record just recently set by pioneering aviator Wally Funk, who was 82 years old when she joined Bezos on the first Blue Origin launch, 60 years after being denied a chance to do so with NASA because she was a woman.
According to TMZ, the trip will be similar to the company's first manned flight in July and will see Shatner blasted into space for a 15-minute flight, which will include several minutes of weightlessness to float around the capsule.
The reporting claims that the flight and the run-up to it are being filmed for a documentary, originally being discussed at Discovery but now being shopped to several entertainment outlets.
Shatner has made no secret of his desire to experience space travel, signaling to his 2.4 million Twitter followers his interest in the opportunity. When Bezos competitor Elon Musk's SpaceX was returning humans to orbit from US soil for the first time in nine years, following the retirement of the space shuttle, he tweeted a picture of himself in an astronaut's helmet with the words: "BTW Nasa, just in case; the suit does fit!"
Shatner will be part of the second crew to head out on the New Shepard rocket when it takes off in October. The first crew launched into orbit in July and included billionaire Jeff Bezos, along with his brother Mark, Wally Funk, and Oliver Daemen. The final seat taken by Daemen was sold through an auction and ended up costing the student's father $20 million. There is no further information available as to who will also be boarding the space module with Bezos and Shatner in October or what the latter is paying for the privilege.
It is likely if Shatner is shelling out money for the opportunity, it will be less than is expected of anyone else due to the free publicity from Shatner's documentary for the company.
Source: New York Post, Movie Web, TMZ