{"id":17485,"date":"2021-09-24T23:00:33","date_gmt":"2021-09-24T15:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/beam-me-up-tmz-says-william-shatner-will-take-blue-origin-suborbital-space-trip\/"},"modified":"2021-09-24T23:00:33","modified_gmt":"2021-09-24T15:00:33","slug":"beam-me-up-tmz-says-william-shatner-will-take-blue-origin-suborbital-space-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/beam-me-up-tmz-says-william-shatner-will-take-blue-origin-suborbital-space-trip\/","title":{"rendered":"Beam me up? TMZ says William Shatner will take Blue Origin suborbital space trip"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"William
The TMZ celebrity website says Star Trek captain William Shatner is due to fly on Blue Origin\u2019s next crewed suborbital space trip. (Left Photo: Paramount; Right Photo: Blue Origin)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The next crewed suborbital spaceflight planned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture \u2014 which could launch as early as next month \u2014 is due to carry Star Trek captain William Shatner, according to the TMZ celebrity news site.<\/p>\n

If the report based on unnamed sources is true, that would make Shatner the oldest person to fly in space at the age of 90, besting the record set by 82-year-old aviation pioneer Wally Funk during the first crewed flight of Blue Origin\u2019s New Shepard suborbital spacecraft in July.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve reached out to Blue Origin (via email) and Shatner (via Twitter), and we\u2019ll update this report with anything we hear back.<\/p>\n

Shatner played Captain James T. Kirk in the original \u201cStar Trek\u201d series and in a series of movies. That gives him at least one thing in common with Bezos. The world\u2019s richest individual also played a part in a Star Trek production: a cameo as an alien Starfleet officer that lasted several seconds in the movie \u201cStar Trek Beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taking a ride on the New Shepard spaceship wouldn\u2019t require as much effort as, say, commanding the Starship Enterprise. The flight profile involves climbing into a crew capsule for launch from Blue Origin\u2019s West Texas spaceport to an altitude in excess of 100 kilometers (62 miles). Shatner and other spacefliers would have a few minutes of floating in zero-G and enjoying the view of the black sky over a curving Earth \u2014 and then would descend to a parachute-aided landing in the Texas desert.<\/p>\n

Training for such a suborbital mission requires only a few days, and the flight itself typically lasts about 10 minutes. That\u2019s in contrast to the time frame for an orbital flight like the one SpaceX provided this month for the philanthropic Inspiration4 mission. Inspiration4\u2019s four crew members went through months of training for a flight that lasted three days.<\/p>\n

TMZ reports that negotiations are in progress to film the mission for a documentary. It\u2019s not clear whether Shatner would be flown at Bezos\u2019 invitation, as Wally Funk was, or whether a fare is being paid for the flight. In advance of July\u2019s crewed flight, the price tag rose as high as $28 million during an auction.<\/p>\n

After July\u2019s New Shepard flight, Blue Origin said the next crewed mission was being planned for the September-October time frame \u2014 which suggests it won\u2019t be long before we find out if TMZ\u2019s sources are right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The TMZ celebrity website says Star Trek captain William Shatner is due to fly on Blue Origin\u2019s next crewed suborbital space trip. (Left Photo: Paramount; Right Photo: Blue Origin) The next crewed suborbital spaceflight planned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture \u2014 which could launch as early as next month \u2014 is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[509,1250,493,4402,4551,4717,4438],"class_list":["post-17485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-blue-origin","tag-new-shepard","tag-space-tourism","tag-suborbital-spaceflight","tag-television","tag-tmz","tag-william-shatner"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17485"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}