William Shatner, AKA Captain Kirk himself, will face the final frontier later this month on a trip into outer space.
The 90-year-old “Star Trek” actor will board Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket, New Shepard NS-18, according to the TODAY Show. Just like his character on the show, Shatner will sit among the stars in a 15-minute ride around the solar system. This will be the second flight for Bezos’ Blue Origin crew, and it’s scheduled to launch at 9:30 a.m. EST on Tuesday, Oct. 12 in West Texas.
It’s a pretty big milestone for both William Shatner and the Blue Origin crew. At 90, he’ll be the oldest person to officially ever go into space.
“I’ve heard about space for a long time now. I’m taking the opportunity to see it for myself. What a miracle,” Shatner said in a statement.
Joining the “Star Trek” actor will be Audrey Powers and two crewmates, Chris Boshuizen and Glen de Vries. Powers works as the vice president of mission & flight operations for Blue Origin, and she can’t wait to go up into space.
“I’m so proud and humbled to fly on behalf of Team Blue, and I’m excited to continue writing Blue’s human spaceflight history,” she said in a statement.
“I was part of the amazing effort we assembled for New Shepard’s Human Flight Certification Review, a years-long initiative completed in July 2021,” she continued. “As an engineer and lawyer with more than two decades of experience in the aerospace industry, I have great confidence in our New Shepard team and the vehicle we’ve developed.”
William Shatner Not the Only Older Person to Make the Trek into Space
While William Shatner will soon make history as the oldest space voyager, another elderly adult also made the trip.
Earlier in July, 82-year-old Wally Funk joined Bezos on Blue Origin’s first human flight. Funk almost made history decades ago, in the 1960s, when she joined the Mercury 13. This group of women was testing to become astronauts, but unfortunately, the program and training were canceled.
“I’ve done a lot of astronaut training through the world, Russia, America, and I could always beat the guys on what they were doing because I was always stronger, and I have always done everything on my own,” Funk told NBC News. Now, she finally got to see the universe for herself.
“I saw darkness. I thought I was going to see the world, but we weren’t quite high enough,” she said during a post-launch news conference in July. “And I felt great. I felt like I was just lying down, just lying down — and I was going into space.”
She ended by saying, “I loved it. I want to go again, fast!”