Star Trek icon William Shatner, who played Captain James Tiberius Kirk in Star Trek: The Original Series and numerous films, recently reacted to traveling to space upon returning to Earth.
Shatner traveled to space aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket on October 13th. The rocket launched around 10:50 a.m. ET.
You can watch below. The rocket launch starts at the 2:23:05 mark.
The crew capsule where Shatner, Chris Boshuizen, Glen de Vries, and Audrey Powers made their trip to space returned to the ground a few minutes later with Shatner saying, “That’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.”
Actor William Shatner, Chris Boshuizen, Glen de Vries, and Audrey Powers are back on Earth after their brief trip to space.
“That’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before,” said Shatner, who became the oldest person to fly to space at the age of 90.https://t.co/kQc9VBTOVy pic.twitter.com/oaw8Y021bD
— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) October 13, 2021
After exiting the capsule, Shatner embraced Blue Origin CEO and former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in a big hug.
William Shatner, who played Captain James T. Kirk in “Star Trek,” has disembarked from Blue Origin’s crew capsule after traveling to space.
He was joined by Blue Origin vice president Audrey Powers and paying passengers Chris Boshuizen and Glen de Vries.https://t.co/kQc9VBTOVy pic.twitter.com/oSw3m5uAGP
— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) October 13, 2021
Shatner is then unable to describe the trip. He’s eventually able to collect himself and says, “It was unbelievable. Unbelieve. The little things of weightlessness, but to see the blue color go right by you and now you are staring into blackness, that’s the thing.”
He continued, “The covering of blue, this sheet, this blanket, this comforter of blue that we have around us. We think, ‘Oh! That’s blue sky.’ And then suddenly you shoot through it all of a sudden as though you whip off a sheet when you are asleep. And you are looking into blackness, into black ugliness. And you look down. There’s the blue down and the black up there.
“It’s just there is mother, and Earth, and comfort. And there is… Is there death? I don’t know. Is that death? Is that the way death is? Whoop and it’s gone,” Shatner relayed.
Still overwhelmed by his emotions, Shatner said, “Jesus, it was so moving to me. This experience has been something unbelievable. Weightlessness, my stomach went up, and I went, ‘God, this is so weird.’ But not as weird as the covering of blue. This is what I’ve never expected. Oh, it’s one thing to say the sky and the thing and the fragile…it’s all true.”
He added, “But what isn’t true, what is unknown until you do it, is this pillow. There’s the this soft blue. Look at the beauty of that color, and it so thin. And you are through it in an instant.”
William Shatner describes his emotion upon returning from space.
“It was so moving to me,” he says. “This is experience was something unbelievable.”https://t.co/kQc9VBTOVy pic.twitter.com/TxFnh5F5jj
— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) October 13, 2021
In another clip, Shatner describes the trip to space as “the most profound experience that I can imagine.”
He tells Bezos, “What you have given me is the most profound experience that I can imagine. I’m so filled with emotion about what just happened. It’s extraordinary, extraordinary. 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.
And it hasn’t gotten anything to do with the little green planet, the blue orb, and the… It has to do with the enormity, the quickness, and the suddenness of life and death, and…”
“What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine,” William Shatner, back from space, tells Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos. “I’m so filled with emotion about what just happened. It’s extraordinary. I hope I never recover from this.” https://t.co/kQc9VBTOVy pic.twitter.com/4QR5aluuwj
— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) October 13, 2021
Shatner’s trip to space at the age of 90 makes him the oldest person ever to travel to space.
What do you make of William Shatner’s travel to space?