“Space, the last frontier,” they said at the start of each episode of Star Trek. Now, finally, that border will fall for Captain Kirk, head of this legendary company. Actor William Shatner, who since 1979 has given life to the famous cosmonaut of the science fiction saga Star Trek and who turned 90 in March, will fly into space on Tuesday, October 12. This was confirmed by himself on his social networks. Who gave the news was the very company with which it will take off: Blue Origin, the subsidiary of Jeff Bezos – the founder of Amazon and the richest man in the world, with 161,000 million euros – dedicated to space travel.
Blue Origin explained that “two amazing and very inspiring people” will join your next mission. These are Shatner himself and the vice president of corporate mission and operations, Audrey Powers, who has been with the company since 2013 and is a pilot (has spent over 2,000 on board of the International Space Station), engineer and member of the American Federation of Commercial Space Flights. With them, as EFE explains, Chris Boshuizen, co-founder of Planet Labs, the first company to commercially use nanosatellites, and Glen de Vries, co-founder of Medidata Solutions, one of the main clinical research platforms in the world. world.
With the statement released by Blue Origin, Shatner was finally able to reveal the secret. “So I can already say something. Yes, that’s right, I’m going to be a bullet man! “, wrote on Twitter, where he has more than 2.4 million followers. To congratulations from his friends and followers, Shatner replied that “it is never too late to discover new things”. The news that Shatner was going to space was leaked by tabloid TMZ in late September, but it was hardly credible.
At 90 and a half, the man who brought Captain Kirk to life for decades will become the oldest person to travel in space, in a flight that will last around 15 minutes and exceed 100 kilometers in altitude. Bezos has already broken his barrier during the alien flight he took in July. There he was accompanied by American pilot Wally Funk, 82, who had been the first American flight instructor in history; in fact, in the sixties she tried to be part of the NASA astronaut program, but was rejected because she was a woman. Now Shatner will break that record in eight years.
Shatner is a very active man, who continues to make series and films. “It’s strange turning 90 and not realizing it. Then you understand it when your insurance company reports it to you or when you renew your driver’s license, ”he told CBS in the spring, explaining that it was all thanks,“ surely ”, to his “DNA” “:” And also for the good Canadian winters, “he laughed. In addition, he is passionate about new technologies, very active on Twitter and for 15 years he ran a special effects studio in Toronto. Born in Montreal, Canada, in March 1931, he wants his presence in this world to last longer than his body can handle.
To do this, soon after turning 90, the performer was the first to participate in a pioneering project of the company StoryFile. Then he spent 45 hours answering more than 650 staff and professional questions at a studio in Los Angeles, California, where it was recorded by 3D cameras. In the future, a hologram of the actor associated with an artificial intelligence program will be able to answer the questions asked by the curious with an interactive video. “It’s a legacy,” Shatner said. “This is what you would leave for your children, on your gravestone, the possibilities are endless.”
The StoryFile co-founder went on to explain that “future generations will not chat with an avatar or a fictional video, but with the real William Shatner, answering questions about his life and career.” Since May, users can access the project and from June anyone can keep this kind of living will.
“Coffeeaholic. Lifelong alcohol fanatic. Typical travel expert. Prone to fits of apathy. Internet trailblazer.”