© Mark Ollig
It was mid-morning, Oct. 13. William Shatner, the actor who famously portrayed Captain James T. Kirk on the iconic science fiction television series “Star Trek,” had just landed in a spacecraft with three others after visiting the final frontier of space.
“Everybody in the world needs to do this,” a visibly emotional Shatner said after emerging from the space capsule named RSS (Reusable Space Ship) First Step.
First Step was manufactured by the Blue Origin Aerospace company, founded in 2000 by billionaire and American entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, who started Amazon in 1994.
The Blue Origin New Shepard rocket system is named after the first American to go into space, astronaut Alan Shepard.
This rocket system includes a suborbital space capsule built with multiple layers of redundancy and is fully autonomous – there are no pilots to fly it; every person on board is a passenger.
The First Step space capsule is dome-shaped, 10 feet high by 12.5 feet wide, and can seat six passengers, with each having a 3.5-foot-by-2.3-foot window to look through.
During the late 1960s, I was one of the millions watching a weekly science fiction television series with Captain Kirk and his crew aboard a starship called the USS Enterprise, traveling at warp speeds throughout the galaxy.
The original television series, “Star Trek,” lasted from 1966 to 1969, ending the same year NASA sent astronauts into space on a mission to land and walk on the moon.
Here we are, 52 years later, and we find Shatner, most notably known for his role as a science fiction space traveler, really becoming one.
Before their flight into space, the four passengers, William Shatner, Chris Boshuizen, Glen De Vries, and Audrey Powers, were required to pass medical tests.
The tests included running down the stairs of the metal gantry, next to the rocket taking them into space.
All four, including the spry and age-defying 90-year-old Shatner, completed their medical tests successfully.
The morning of Oct. 13, Shatner and the three other passengers were seated aboard the Blue Origin RSS First Step pressurized space capsule attached atop the 60-foot-tall NS-18 (New Shepard 18) single-stage rocket.
Millions from around the world anxiously watched as the countdown commenced.
At 9:49 a.m. CST, the rocket blasted off from the Blue Origin Launch Site One complex located outside the west Texas town of Van Horn.
The NS-18 rocket traveled from the Earth at 2,235 mph (a bit less than warp speed). As a result, Shatner and the others aboard the space capsule experienced 5 Gs of gravitational force pulling against them as they propelled upward.
The Karman Line is a boundary a little more than 62 miles above the Earth and is agreed by many aeronautic organizations to be the beginning of space.
The pressurized space capsule separated from the rocket booster before soaring to nearly 66.5 miles above our planet.
Shatner and the other passengers were now in space. With zero Gs, they experienced weightlessness for three minutes.
Shatner, looking out his window at the blueness of the Earth and the darkness of space, exclaimed, “Oh, wow!”
Upon re-entering the lower Earth atmosphere, the parachutes of the space capsule opened, causing it to slowly descend and land safely on the desert ground in Culberson County, TX, near Van Horn.
The entire trip to and from space officially lasted 10 minutes 17 seconds.
“To see the blue color whip by and now you’re staring into blackness, that’s the thing. The covering of blue, this sheath, this blanket, this comforter of blue that we have around, we say, ‘Oh, that’s blue sky.’ And then suddenly you shoot through it all, and you’re looking into blackness,” described a deep-in-thought Shatner, reflecting upon his experience in space after returning to Earth.
He said these words during an emotional description of how he felt looking down at the comforting Earth and then out into the startling blackness of space.
And then, becoming teary-eyed, Shatner exclaimed: “I’m so filled with emotion with what just happened. It’s extraordinary. I hope I never recover from this. I am overwhelmed. I had no idea. It would be so very important for everybody to have that experience.”
When later asked by the press what made him so emotional upon his return to Earth, Shatner paused for a moment and said, “The absolute startling, unexpected difference between the darkness of space and the blue of Earth. Just know that out there lies coldness; yes, the mysteries of space, but right here lies sustenance, life, and nurturing.”
Shatner, who inspired generations by playing a captain on a science fiction television series that led many people to join NASA and civilian space programs, now has his name added to the list of those who have been in space.
Aside from being an actor, he is now an astronaut.
The three-hour replay of Shatner and his fellow passengers’ flight into space can be seen on the Blue Origin YouTube channel using this shortened link: https://bit.ly/3p8RqSO.
The record for being the oldest person to fly in space now belongs to William Shatner, who achieved this historical feat at 90 years, six months, and 22 days old.
Well done, Mr. Shatner. If Leonard Nimoy were here, he would probably smile, arch his eyebrow, and say, “Fascinating.”
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| Here we are, 55 years later, and we find William Shatner, most notably known for his role as a science fiction space traveler, really becoming one. |