Star Trek's William Shatner Shares Supportive Message for SpaceX Astronauts

Thanks for your well wishes for our #LaunchAmerica journey, Captain! Let's boldly go. [...]

By Jamie Lovett

Star Trek star William Shatner shared a message of support today with the astronauts that were meant to be a part of the historic SpaceX rocket launch. SpaceX and NASA rescheduled the launch for Saturday due to problematic weather, but Shatner's message still rings true. "Wow, we're making history again, the NASA program," Shatner says in a video shared by the NASA on Twitter. "I'm there with you guys in spirit. Bob, Doug, good luck. I know you'll be fine. I'll be watching and got everything crossed. Arms, legs, I'm tied in a knot. Can't wait for you to get back safely."

Shatner has said in the past that he'd be willing to head into space with SpaceX founder Elon Musk at his side. In 2019, a fan on Twitter asked Shatner if he'd take up a hypothetical offer from Musk to go into space. "Yes, with him in the seat next to me," Shatner replied. "I'll hold his hand during takeoff as an added bonus!"

While Shatner seems ready for a real-life voyage into space, he won't be suiting up in his old Starfleet uniform again any time in the near future. "No. I think Kirk's story is pretty well played out at this point," Shatner tweeted in response to a fan's question about the possibility of him reprising the role.

Shatner seemed skeptical of the idea when ComicBook.com spoke to him ahead of his Grand Ole Opry performance in 2019. When asked about the possibility of resurrecting Kirk for a series similar to Star Trek: Picard, Shatner said, "That word, 'resurrect.' That's a key word. Resurrect. You'd have to resurrect me, Shatner, in order to do the daily. I don't know what Patrick is doing 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."

Shatner played out Kirk's death in a scene in the 1996 film Star Trek Generations. "I thought about dying, my death, and this beloved character who's going to be put to rest," Shatner said of the scene in a 2018 interview. "How do I play it? You know there's got to be a moment, you're alive, and you're going to die, now you're alive, and now you're going to die. There has to be a moment when we all, at that moment of death, we say, 'Holy cats, I'm dying!' And you're dead. How do you treat that moment? And I think we die the way we live. If we live filled with fear, a fear of flying, a fear of leaving the village, you'll be fearful, you'll lose your breath, you'll panic, and you'll die. Or if you look forward to the next adventure, maybe you're conscious, maybe we're conscious when we die. Maybe, we're aware. A lot of people believe in heaven. We're all going to go to a lovely place and see somebody. I don't know what age we see our mother and father. Are they still old? Or are they young? We don't know. That would be a lovely thing to happen, but we don't know. It's how we die that's interesting. And I think we die the way we live."

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