Star Trek’s William Shatner blasts into space with Blue Origin
- The Captain Kirk actor called the journey ‘the most profound experience’, as he returned to Earth after becoming the oldest person in space at age 90
- ‘Everybody in the world needs to do this,’ said Shatner, who was given a free ride on the Blue Origin flight by owner and Star Trek fan Jeff Bezos

Hollywood’s Captain Kirk, 90-year-old William Shatner, blasted into space Wednesday in a convergence of science fiction and science reality, reaching the final frontier aboard a ship built by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin company.
The Star Trek actor and three fellow passengers hurtled to an altitude of 66.5 miles (107km) over the West Texas desert in the fully automated capsule, then safely parachuted back to Earth in a flight that lasted just over 10 minutes.
“What you have given me is the most profound experience,” an exhilarated Shatner told Bezos after emerging from the capsule, the words spilling from him in a soliloquy almost as long as the flight.
“I hope I never recover from this. I hope that I can maintain what I feel now. I don’t want to lose it.”

He said that going from the blue sky to the utter blackness of space was a moving experience: “In an instant you go, whoa, that’s death. That’s what I saw.”