Star Trek's Captain Kirk, William Shatner space flight in the Blue Origin expedition opted for a delayed launch due to the forecasted strong winds.
Blue Origin is an aerospace and sub-orbital spaceflight company founded by the eCommerce giant and Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos.
New Launch Schedule
William Shatner's space flight for Blue Origin was originally scheduled for October 12.
However, according to the report of Variety, the spokeswoman of the aerospace company announced: "Due to forecasted winds on Tuesday, Oct. 12, Blue Origin's mission operations team has made the decision to delay the launch of NS-18 and is now targeting Wednesday, October 13."
The Blue Origin's New Shepard, N18 space flight expedition is set to launch from the company's launch Site One in West Texas near Van Horn this Wednesday at 8:30 a.m CST.
Due to forecasted winds in West Texas we are pushing #NS18 launch target to Wednesday, October 13. Liftoff is targeted for 8:30 am CDT / 13:30 UTC. Live broadcast begins at T-90 mins on https://t.co/7Y4TherpLr. Stay tuned for more details.
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) October 10, 2021
Who is William Shatner?
William Shatner is also popularly known by many as Captain James T. Kirk for the role he played in the 1960s TV series called Star Trek.
Star Trek is a hit TV series that is conceptualized around space exploration. Since then, it has birthed more movies and TV shows, along with other media like games and toys for fans of the sci-fi franchise around the world.
Shatner is the oldest person in the space expedition by Blue Origin. He is also declared as the oldest man in history to go in space at 90 years old. Furthermore, he is the first one in the cast of Star trek to live the reality of his character going to space to explore.
Shatner and the NS-18 crew will fly just outside the Karman line, at a height of 62 miles, in which they will experience four minutes of weightlessness.
In addition to that, the crew will also be able to see the planet's curvature.
The presence of one of the most well-known characters from space exploration television in this launch is intended to generate interest in the space tourism industry.
William Shatner's space flight is officially the second crewed expedition by Blue Origin.
Blue Origin's first crewed flight took place in July, with Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark, aviator Wally Funk, and Oliver Daeman on board.
On that first expedition, Dutch student Oliver Daeman is the youngest person to reach space at the age of 18, while. Wall Funk used to be the oldest person to set foot at 82 years old. Nevertheless, the current expedition of the N18 will break his record with Shatner aboard at 90 years old.
According to Space.com, William Shatner's space flight will be accompanied by a former NASA engineer and co-founder of Planet Labs, Chris Boshuizen; Glen de Vries, vice chair for life sciences and healthcare at the French software company Dassault Systèmes, and Audrey Powers, the Blue Origin's vice president of mission and flight operations.
The veteran actor revealed that he is indeed terrified despite playing the character captain Kirk in Star Trek.
As reported by Nicole Drum of Comicbook, Shatner has this to say: "I'm terrified. I'm Captain Kirk and I'm terrified. I'm not really terrified-yes I am. It comes and goes like a summer cold. I'm planning on putting my nose against the window (while in space) and my only hope is I won't see someone else looking back."
The Space Tourism Race
The space tourism sector is booming nowadays, with the most influential billionaires, like Richard Branson, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bazos investing in it
Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin's major suborbital space tourism competitor, is selling seats aboard its VSS Unity spaceplane valued at $450,000 each. On the other hand, the cost of a ticket to ride the New Shepard has not been publicly revealed by Blue Origin.
