William Shatner<\/a> almost got off the Blue Origin rocket during the countdown to his historic space flight.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
William Shatner flew to space in 2021<\/p>\n
The 95-year-old actor became the oldest person to go up into space when he blasted off on Jeff Bezos’ New Shepard NS-18 rocket in October 2021 but he had doubts while climing 11 stories in the gantry to get to the ship opening and noticed gas coming off one of the vents, which he was tod was hydrogen.<\/p>\n
Speaking in conversation with close friend Neil DeGrasse Tyson during their The Universe Is Absurd! event at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills, the Hollywood Reporter reports he added: \u201cSo now, with trepidation, I enter the ship and I\u2019m in the chair, a five-point buckle, and the countdown begins.”<\/p>\n
To add to his nerves, someone in ground contol noted there was an “anomaly” and he recalled thinking: \u201cWhat the f*** is an anomaly?\u201d <\/p>\n
The countdown continued and those on board were told: \u201cAll right, everybody, we\u2019re removing the gantry. Anybody who wants to get off, get off now.”<\/p>\n
\nHe added: “And I go, OK. And I think, \u2018I can\u2019t, I\u2019m Captain Kirk. I can\u2019t.’<\/p>\n
\nShatner described the G-force on the flight as being like an \u201celephant sitting on your chest \u2026 and then suddenly it\u2019s off and suddenly you\u2019re floating.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nOnce he unbuckled his seat, he headed straight across tot he window to look out, and when he landed back, he was overcome with emotion.<\/p>\n
\nHe said: “Jeff Bezos was there with a microphone and international cameras, and I\u2019m weeping.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI\u2019m crying uncontrollably, and I don\u2019t know why. [Eventually I realised] that I\u2019m in grief.\u201d <\/p>\n
\nThe Star Trek legend recalled visiting remote areas “that are in trouble” for a show called Voice of the Planet and remembered being appalled by the garbage left behind by hikers in the Himalayas.<\/p>\n
\nHe said: \u201cS*** is all over the place in this pristine mountains and it echoes the shit that we\u2019ve left all over the planet with,\u201d he said. \u201cNow we\u2019ve learned that microplastics are floating in our blood. <\/p>\n
\n“As I speak to you, I could drop dead from microplastics. It\u2019s a tragic thing that we\u2019re doing to our planet, and I was in grief for the Earth and the beauty that we see all around us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nShatner has previously questioned why “vulnerable” humans are sent to explore space, rather than robots, but he has now realised it requires the “soul and the brain” of a person to have the “experience”.<\/p>\n
\nHe said: “The voyage of exploration, which going to Mars will be \u2026 needs to be experienced by a human being.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt takes the human being\u2019s experience, it takes the soul, the brain, the conscious and the unconscious being that we are to experience this magical thing called exploration.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cA cold robot can send back the facts probably better \u2026 [but] only a human being can experience that. It\u2019s not the same experience to send mechanical entities. \u2026 What a marvelous thing for a human being to discover whatever there is to discover on Mars as opposed to a cold robot running along there and running out of power.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nTyson replied: \u201cLet\u2019s summarise what you just said. No one has ever given a ticker-tape parade for a robot. No one has ever named a middle school after a robot.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"22 May 2026 William Shatner almost got off the Blue Origin rocket during the countdown to his historic space flight. William Shatner flew to space in 2021 The 95-year-old actor became the oldest person to go up into space when he blasted off on Jeff Bezos’ New Shepard NS-18 rocket in October 2021 but he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":241732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3157,15357,9025],"class_list":{"0":"post-241731","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-make-up","8":"tag-jeff-bezos","9":"tag-neil-degrasse-tyson","10":"tag-william-shatner"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}