William Shatner Might Be Going On A Real 'Star Trek' With Jeff Bezos
For legions of "Star Trek" fans, legendary actor William Shatner is the one and only Captain Kirk. Shatner played the unflappable space captain across movies, video games, a TV series, and even an animated show (via IMDb). Although the actor has worked extensively elsewhere during his celebrated career, Shatner's name will always be synonymous with Kirk. Offscreen, the Canadian powerhouse has frequently expressed a desire to venture beyond Earth's atmosphere himself.
According to Space.com, Shatner actually tweeted a photoshopped shot of himself wearing a spacesuit to NASA. The actor cheekily asked whether he could join the SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo-2 commercial spaceflight to the International Space Station, tweeting, "Just in case; the suit does fit!" And, as The Independent notes, at the recent San Diego Comic-Con, the "Star Trek" veteran casually revealed, "There's a possibility that I'm going to go up for a brief moment and come back down."
However, although it might have previously seemed like the actor was simply fantasizing, if Jeff Bezos has any say in it, Shatner could be heading up into space sooner than he thinks.
Jeff Bezos might be taking William Shatner into space
William Shatner, who found fame as Captain Kirk on "Star Trek," could soon find himself in space for real if a report by TMZ is to be believed. Their sources revealed that Shatner is scheduled to blast off from Earth next month on board a Blue Origin capsule, the space travel company owned by Amazon founder Jezz Bezos, who previously went into space himself. The journey is reportedly going to last just 15 minutes and will be captured for an upcoming documentary. However, neither the actor nor Blue Origin confirmed this report either way. If it does happen, Shatner will be the oldest person ever to go into space, as the actor recently turned the ripe old age of 90.
Bezos previously went into space in July 2021 alongside brother Mark, test pilot Wally Funk, and teenager Oliver Daemen. They reached an altitude of 66.5 miles and played around in zero gravity before returning to Earth. Space travel is infamously expensive, with Daemen's father paying over $20 million for his seat at auction. According to The Guardian, Funk was 82 when she went into space in what Bezos called "the best day ever." Shatner has been a space nerd for a very long time, narrating short film "Universe" in 1976, working on a 2011 documentary about the space shuttle, and taking part in the centenary celebrations for NASA's Langley research center in 2017 and in promoting the Parker solar probe in 2018.