Blue Origin spacecraft carrying ‘Star Trek’ actor Shatner launches in Texas

Shatner, at the age of 90, is set to become the oldest person ever in space during a flight lasting about 11 minutes. Shatner and three of his companions flew aboard the white 60-foot-high (18.3 m) New Shepard spacecraft to Blue Origin’s launch site about 20 miles (32 km) outside the rural West Texas town of Van Horn.

Blue Origin said the four astronauts will experience about three to four minutes of weightlessness and travel above the internationally recognized limit of space, known as the Karman Line, which is about 62 miles (100 km) from Earth. ) is up. The crew capsule is due to return to the Texas desert under a parachute.

The four astronauts, all wearing blue flight suits with the company name in white letters on one sleeve, climbed into the crew capsule atop the spacecraft before launch and followed Bezos up a set of stairs. Tied up. Each rang the bell before entering the capsule, with Bezos then closing the hatch. Before that, they used to ride a vehicle with Bezos at the wheel to the launch pad.

Winds were light and skies were clear for the launch, which was conducted after two delays totaling about 45 minutes.

Joining Shatner—who embodied the promise of space travel in the 1960s classic TV series “Star Trek” and seven subsequent films—all in the civilian crew are former NASA engineer Chris Boshuizen, clinical research entrepreneur Glenn de Vries. and was the vice president of Blue Origin. Engineer Audrey Powers.

It marked the second space tourism flight for Blue Origin, the company of billionaire American businessman Jeff Bezos founded two decades ago.

The flight represents another momentous day for the nascent space tourism industry, which, according to UBS, could reach an annual value of $3 billion in a decade. The flight, earlier scheduled for Tuesday, was pushed back by a day due to wind-related reasons.

Blue Origin had a successful first space tourism flight on July 20, with Bezos and three others aboard flying to the edge of space and back on a 10-minute and 10-second journey. In that flight, at the age of 82, leading female aviator Wally Funk became the oldest person to reach space. The previous record was set in 1998 when pioneer astronaut John Glenn returned to space as a 77-year-old US senator.

Bezos, the founder and current executive chairman of Amazon.com Inc., formed Blue Origin two decades ago.

Shatner, who turns 90 in March, has been acting since the 1950s and keeps busy with entertainment projects and fan conventions. He was cast as Captain James T. of the Starship Enterprise on the 1960s classic TV series “Star Trek.” Known for starring as Kirk and for seven subsequent films about fictional adventures in outer space.

As an actor, Shatner was synonymous with space travel. During the opening credits of each episode of the series, he called space the “final frontier” and promised “to explore strange new worlds, to seek new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man Haven’t gone before.”

Shatner said his space travel has both irony and symmetry, having played the role of a space explorer for decades and has now truly become one.

In the Blue Origin video, Shatner said, “After playing Captain Kirk…

Shatner’s involvement in the flight has helped generate hype for Blue Origin as it competes against two billionaire-backed rivals — Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. — that offer customers the experience of space flight. Willing to pay large sums of money to do so.

Branson inaugurated his space tourism service on July 11 aboard his company’s VSS Unity rocket plane with six others aboard an orbital flight. SpaceX, which has launched several astronauts and cargo payloads to the International Space Station for NASA, has started its space tourism business by flying the first all-civilian crew to reach Earth orbit in a three-day mission that ends Sept. Started it.

The US Federal Aviation Administration said two weeks ago that it would review safety concerns raised by former and current employees of Blue Origin, who have accused the company of prioritizing speed and cost savings over quality control and adequate staffing.

(Reporting by Mike Blake; Additional reporting by Peter Szekely in New York and Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Will Dunham)