Star Trek's William Shatner Reportedly Going Into Space With Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin

09/24/2021 12:08 pm EDT

Star Trek star William Shatner will be heading to space with Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket. TMZ reports that the actor will be heading into the stars aboard the New Shepard capsule. If he follows through, he would be the oldest person launched into space. It's being billed as a 15-minute civilian flight. So, the same as last time the Blue Origin crew managed to get into the lower atmosphere. There's also talk of the Star Strek actor filming a documentary of some kind with the hopes to sell it to some sort of distributor. Originally there were discussions with Discovery, but that never materialized. Shatner actually said in the past that he would be willing to go into space with Elon Musk. He joked when a fan asked him about SpaceX, "Yes, with him in the seat next to me. I'll hold his hand during takeoff as an added bonus!" So, you could look at this latest stunt as a deepening of the rivalry between the two billionaires. Advantage Bezos this round as he gets another crew off the ground. 

While all this space stuff is interesting, Star Trek fans are probably wondering if the actor would ever consider coming back to the series. With everything surrounding Picard, it's not exactly a stretch to think that a franchise legend would go ahead and make the decision to return. But, from the sounds of an interview that Comicbook.com did with Shatner in 2019, there won't be any resurrecting Kirk anytime soon.

"That word, 'resurrect.' That's a key word," Shatner noted. "Resurrect. You'd have to resurrect me, Shatner, in order to do the daily [laughes] I don't what Patrick is doing that. Doing a series is debilitating for a young guy, for a 25-year-old, which I was doing when I was 25 years old. It's a physical wrecker, it's a mental wrecker, and it's a homewrecker 'cause you're working 14, 18 hours a day. And in the last series I did, Boston Legal, I had, in rush hour, a two-hour commute. So add that."

"So no, I would not be interested in doing a series, per se," he added, "but I will be on the air in something this year in something I can't tell you about right now, but you'll hear about it soon, and maybe on two and maybe even three shows that'll be on for 10, 12, 14 episodes."

What do you think of this whole Shatner in space thing? Let us know in the comments!

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