90-Year-Old William Shatner Calls His Space Joyride the 'Most Profound Experience'

[Jilly_in_VA]

Star Trek star William Shatner was launched to the edge of space on Wednesday, becoming the oldest person to make the voyage.

Just before 11 a.m ET Wednesday, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ aerospace company, Blue Origin, rocketed the 90-year-old sci-fi actor in a capsule from a launchpad in Van Horn, Texas, for the roughly 10-minute milestone trip.

After coming back down to earth, an emotional Shatner waxed poetic to Bezos about what he called “the most profound experience.”

“There is mother and Earth and comfort,” Shatner said, pointing below. “And there—is there death? I don’t know, is that death? Is that the way death is? Whoop, and it’s gone. Jesus,” he told Bezos, who celebrated touchdown by showering family and friends with champagne.

“I hope I never recover from this. I hope that I can maintain what I feel now. I don’t want to lose it. It’s so much larger than me and life,” he said through tears. “The enormity, and the quickness, and the subtleness of life and death.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/william-shatner-is-now-the-oldest-human-to-blast-off-into-space?ref=home

[hlthe2b]

1. I'm pleased for him. He may not be just any ordinary person, but he's not among the ultra ultra rich

that are vying for these opportunities. And yes, it clearly did mean a lot to him. Good on ya, Captain Kirk!

[lagomorph777]

2. Love the symbolism!

[malaise]

3. The most profound experience of my life has been watching ReTHUGs and M$Greedia

spread propaganda on behalf of a lying, cheating, unprincipled, unethical, uncouth, woman-hating, anti-democratic, racist scoundrel while attempting to spew their both sides bullshit.

That said, I'm happy for Shatner

[BootinUp]

4. Nice, I'll have to catch the highlights. Nt

[Grammy23]

5. He seemed truly awed by the experience.

He wished every person could have the opportunity to see it for themselves. He was in tears and nearly speechless at first. Overcome with emotion might summarize it.

I was so surprised to see how spry and articulate he is. It was a joy to see a man of 90 easily able to pass for 30 or 35 years younger! He needs to bottle whatever he is doing and sell it.

[Celerity]

6. video

[Jilly_in_VA]

7. Just happy for him

and my inner 10 year old astro-geek wants to do it too!

[Boomerproud]

17. Yes. Watching it on the nightly news that's exactly how I felt.

It's been a very long time since I had that feeling. I kept hearing the song Telstar in my head. :

[CentralMass]

8. That is great. I'm glad that he got the chance to go up.

[BlueIdaho]

9. I was pretty jaded about this stunt

Until Mr. Shatner stepped out of the capsule and talked about his deeply cosmic experience. He changed my mind and all I can say is - thank you sir. He expressed our human connections to this fragile world in a sincere profound way.

[oregonjen]

10. I felt the same way

[scipan]

11. Reminded me of Apollo 8

Christmas Eve? When they went around the moon. The pictures of earth- it was so fragile and so small and so beautiful. The first time I think that anyone saw earth from that far away and we all saw it.

[BlueIdaho]

14. Remember it well...

Had the poster on my wall for years…

[WarGamer]

12. Along with MANY of you...

This 21st Century Space Exploration is quite the thing.

You see... when I was running around the house with a GI Joe in my hand, the TV was showing moon landings and rocket launches in black and white.

I grew up in a generation of kids who took cardboard washing machine boxes and turned them into lunar landing capsules... kids wanted to be cops, firemen and astronauts when they grew up.

And Captain Kirk was there with me. He was there with me in Grade School after I finished homework. In High School he was there with me at friends houses when we were hanging out at night (re-runs in LA, channel 5 or 13 IIRC) and I know that Shatner has publicly decried ever doing Star Trek, calling his acting dreadful but sometimes I think he doesn't understand the impact he had on peoples lives.

So if my life bookends landing men on the Moon and landing men on Mars, I'll be very satisfied.

[Wingus Dingus]

13. Good for him!

[Ron Green]

15. Can Shatner's emotional response somehow bring about

a true appraisal of the nature of Creation and our responsibility to it?

Could the space pictures of earth in the 60s, followed by Earth Day, have done any of that?

Nah. It’s entertainment, first, last and always. “Space tourism” is always quickly followed up by the real Nature Of This Business, which is… what? We gonna colonize Space, and live there in peace and prosperity?

[MustLoveBeagles]

16. I watched this live

He was obviously humbled and deeply moved by the experience.