Today, Jeff Bezo’s space venture Blue Origin launched actor William Shatner, a.k.a., Captain Kirk of Star Trek fame, and Audrey Powers, Blue Origin’s Vice President of Mission & Flight Operations, into space on board New Shepard NS-18. They joined crewmates Chris Boshuizen and Glen de Vries for the flight which lifted off from Launch Site One this morning.
After the roughly 10 minute flight – which included about 3 minutes of weightlessness outside of the Earth’s atmosphere – Shatner was visibly emotional.
“Everybody in the world needs to do this.
Everybody in the world needs to see.”
“What you have given me is the most profound experience,” Shatner told Bezos after climbing out the hatch. “I hope I never recover from this. I hope that I can maintain what I feel now. I don’t want to lose it.”
“Everybody in the world needs to do this. Everybody in the world needs to see,” he said. “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, into black ugliness. In an instant you go, `Whoa, that’s death.′ That’s what I saw.”
In an amusing aside, NASA sent best wishes ahead of the flight, tweeting: “You are, and always shall be, our friend.”
