Blue Origin intends to fly William Shatner, the Canadian actor who is best known for the role of Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek television series, as one of the passengers on the company’s New Shepard rocket.
The launch is scheduled for October 12th. Audrey Powers, Blue Origin’s vice president of mission and flight operations, will join the flight. The team of four was rounded out by the earlier declared members Planet Labs co-founder Chris Boshuizen and Medidata co-founder Glen de Vries.
Blue Origin will also hold a live webcast about the mission names NS-18, with the coverage to begin at 5:30 PM IST on October 12th.
Shatner’s journey would mark the second human spaceflight for Blue Origin’s tourism and research rocket New Shepard, which sent Bezos to space with a crew of four in July. At age 90, Shatner would be the oldest person to fly to space, topping aerospace pioneer Wally Funk, 82, who flew at the first launch of Blue Origin.
A journey on Blue Origin’s New Shepard usually lasts around 10 minutes from liftoff to landing. The reusable rocket brings the capsule up beyond the U.S. border of space at 80 kilometres altitude, with the spacecraft and crew hovering in microgravity for a few minutes before turning back to land following a set of parachutes.
Bezos said that after the spaceflight, the company had sold almost $100 million worth of tickets to prospective travellers. He also remarked that Blue Origin intends to fly three crewed missions in 2021, with Shatner’s trip being the second mission out of the three. Shatner joining the spaceflight was reported by TMZ.
The company’s statement to send the next crewed spaceflight arrives as the Federal Aviation Administration evaluates safety matters raised by current and past employees in a piece published last week.
CEO of Blue Origin Bob Smith, in an email received by CNBC, acknowledged the safety accusations by stating that the company’s New Shepard program “went through a methodical and painstaking process to certify” the rocket to carry people, continuing that “anyone that claims otherwise is uninformed and simply incorrect.”
Blue Origin is experiencing tension from intensifying employee reduction, CNBC published on Friday, including the separation of the New Shepard program’s senior vice president in August.
