Youtube Captain Kirk Please Not Again
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION
L-v years subsequently his debut as Captain Kirk in the cult-classic TV serial Star Trek, William Shatner, now 90, is finally launching to the final frontier for existent Wednesday, becoming the oldest person to wing in space courtesy of Jeff Bezos and his rocket visitor Blue Origin.
Shatner volition join Australian Chris Boshuizen, founder of Earth-observation company Planet Labs, microbiologist Glen de Vries, and Blue Origin's Audrey Powers for alpha on a x-minute up-and-down flying out of the discernible temper to the edge of infinite.
Running a twenty-four hours late considering of high winds, liftoff from Blue Origin'south West Texas launch site is targeted for ix:30 a.m. EDT.
In an interview with Gayle King om CBS Mornings, Shatner joked he'll be able to brag almost being the oldest person to wing in infinite. Merely he said his actual motivation was "to have the vision, I want to encounter space, I want to see the Earth, I want to see what we need to do to save World."
"I want to accept a perspective that hasn't been shown to me before," he said. "That's what I'g interested in seeing."
If all goes well, the New Shepard will carry the crew to an altitude of just above 62 miles, the internationally recognized "boundary" betwixt the discernible atmosphere and space. The passengers volition enjoy three to 4 minutes of weightlessness — and jaw-dropping views — before a parachute descent to Earth.
"Yes, information technology's truthful; I'one thousand going to exist a 'rocket homo!'" Shatner tweeted when Blue Origin revealed he was joining the crew.
"Welcome Mr. Shatner to our flight crew! We're going to accept then much fun this week!" Boshuizen tweeted back.
The flight will marker just the second crewed launch of a New Shepard capsule since Bezos, his brother Marking, 82-year-erstwhile aviation pioneer Wally Funk and Dutch teenager Oliver Daemen took off July 20 on the company'southward commencement such flight.
Daemen will nevertheless hold the record for youngest person to fly in infinite after Tuesday's launch, only Shatner will eclipse Funk'due south record by 8 years and John Glenn's marker before that by 13.
"I'g looking frontward to the whole thing," Shatner told CNN's Anderson Cooper. "Imagine being weightless and staring into the blackness and seeing the World, that'southward what I want to absorb."
But he added, smile: "Things similar that go upwards and boom in the dark. It's a footling scary, I'll tell you."
Blue Origin's medical requirements for passengers are relatively relaxed given the spacecraft is fully automated.
The well-nigh difficult challenges for 90-year-old Shatner likely will exist climbing the seven flights of stairs required to reach the gangway to board the New Shepard sheathing and so enduring more than v times the normal force of gravity during descent.
But Funk had no problems, and Blue Origin officials presumably expect the same for Shatner.
The mission marks the sixth piloted commercial, non-regime sub-orbital spaceflight in a high-stakes competition between Bezos' Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, owned past fellow billionaire Richard Branson.
Virgin has launched four piloted flights of its winged spaceplane VSS Unity, most recently sending upwards Branson, two pilots and iii company crewmates on July 11. At least one more than flying is planned this year, with three researchers on lath representing the Italian air forcefulness, before commercial passenger flights begin next yr.
Blue Origin followed up the Bezos flight by launching a suite of NASA experiments on an unpiloted mission Aug. 26. The flight Wednesday volition be the company's 18th overall and the 2d with passengers aboard.
Virgin Galactic is charging about $500,000 per seat. Blue Origin has non appear pricing for the New Shepard or how much Boshuizen and de Vries might have paid.
Shatner is flight as a invitee of Blue Origin while Powers, a lawyer, a former NASA infinite station flying controller and Bluish Origin's vice president for missions and flight operations, is flight every bit a company representative.
CBS News recently reported allegations of safety issues from current and one-time Blue Origin employees, most speaking anonymously, including complaints about a "toxic" corporate civilisation. But Powers told King "that just hasn't been my experience at Blue."
"We're exceedingly thorough," she said. "I've worked on New Shepherd for eight years now in a variety of roles, and I can't say enough about the team of professionals that work on this program. … Condom has always been our top priority. That has always been my experience hither."
Asked what she wanted to do almost on the flight, Powers said in a Blue Origin video posted to Twitter "I plan to spend the majority of the time looking out the window." Shatner agreed, saying "I programme to be looking out the window with my nose pressed against the (glass). The just matter I don't want to see is a picayune gremlin looking back at me!"
He was referring to a now-archetype episode of "The Twilight Zone" titled "Nightmare at 20,000 feet" in which Shatner, playing the function of an airline passenger, sees a gremlin on the plane's wing. His frantic efforts to convince his wife and fellow passengers the gremlin is real instead convinces them he'southward suffered a breakdown.
James T. Kirk is Shatner'due south virtually famous role and in the Blueish Origin video, Powers was asked how excited she was to fly with the legendary starship captain.
"I don't know if I'one thousand more excited to exist going to space with Denny Crane or with Captain Kirk," she said, referring to Shatner's portrayal of a lawyer in the TV series "Boston Legal."
"But Denny Crane was on the verge of senility," Shatner joked.
"That's right!" Powers laughed. "We probably want the Helm Kirk version."
"I recollect you lot're ameliorate off with that guy," Shatner replied.
Star Trek debuted in 1966 when NASA was still launching ii-man Gemini spacecraft. The series was canceled after three seasons, but devoted fans turned it into a cult classic. NASA named its image space shuttle "Enterprise," spin-off series were launched and Shatner starred in seven of the 13 feature-length Star Trek movies released to date.
While filming the original Star Trek for goggle box, Shatner told Cooper, information technology was just dawning on people that astronauts would soon be flight to the moon.
"I would go downwardly to Cape Kennedy from fourth dimension to fourth dimension during the series and I met all the astronauts and I was very impressed," Shatner said. "When they went to the moon, I had reached (my) nadir, they were at the apogee. I was divorced, the show was canceled and I'm looking upward there … and I'thousand lying in a cab trying to get some sleep considering I have to perform the next solar day and I tin't beget a hotel room.
"So 55 years later, I wrote a song for this album that'south out there now called 'Pecker,' and one of the songs is 'So Far From the Moon." It was all about that moment when I was looking at the heaven, being and then far from the moon, and here I am all this fourth dimension later being a few g anxiety closer to the moon than you are."
Equally might exist expected, Shatner is the "star" of New Shepard flying eighteen, and that's presumably but fine with crewmates Boshuizen and de Vries. Despite their professional and fiscal success, neither man has an entry in Wikipedia and both seem content to keep personal details personal.
Boshuizen, 44, is an Australian who holds a Ph.D. in physics from the Academy of Sydney. After a stint at NASA'south Ames Inquiry Middle in California, he co-founded Planet Labs, a visitor that pioneered the utilize of small "nanosats" and now operates the largest fleet of commercial Earth-observation satellites.
He also is a partner at DCVC, a "deep tech" investment company in San Francisco, and is a musician in his spare time, performing under the name "Dr. Chrispy."
"I'k very excited," he told King. "I've waited my entire life to do this. I call up it'south pretty astonishing that 2021 is the year that really the human race is finally starting to go to space at calibration.
"I think nosotros'll look back at this engagement 50 years from at present and go, wow, this really was a special time in history, simply like the Wright brothers, when people started flight rider planes. It'southward really exciting to be part of history and I tin't wait to fly."
De Vries, a private pilot in his spare time, was trained as a molecular biologist and co-founded Medidata Solutions, the almost-used clinical research platform in the world. The company'south software has managed more than than 25,000 clinical trials involving more than seven million patients. Dassault Systèmes acquired the company in 1999 for $five.8 billion.
"I am actually looking forwards to seeing the Earth from a dissimilar perspective than I ever had before," he said in the CBS Mornings crew interview. "I just can't wait to stare out that window and feel differently about humanity and our planet than I've ever had the opportunity to before."
COMPETING APPROACHES TO SUB-ORBITAL SPACEFLIGHT
The competition between Blueish Origin and Virgin Galactic showcases the emerging commercial space market.
Branson won the commercial sub-orbital space race in 2018 when his company launched its first piloted test flying to a higher place fifty miles, the boundary of space recognized by NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration.
While Branson'south July 11 sub-orbital hop was Virgin's quaternary conveying pilots, information technology was the starting time with a full half-dozen-person crew and the commencement with the company owner on board.
Branson announced his flight after Bezos had already selected his July xx launch date, upstaging the Amazon founder and grabbing headlines in the battle to sell a production — spaceflight — as a for-profit enterprise.
"I truly believe that space belongs to all of us," Branson said before his flying. "After more than xvi years of research, engineering and testing, Virgin Galactic stands at the vanguard of a new commercial space industry, which is set to open space to humankind and change the world for good."
He said he was "honored to help validate the journey our future astronauts will undertake and ensure nosotros evangelize the unique customer experience people await from Virgin."
Unlike Virgin'south VSS Unity spaceplane, which is launched from a carrier jet and glides to a runway landing after a cursory visit to the lower edge of space, Blue Origin'south New Shepard is a much more than traditional rocket and sheathing.
In a fiddling more than than two minutes, the single-phase booster propels the sheathing and its crew direct upwardly to an altitude of almost 32 miles and a velocity of some two,200 mph before main engine shutdown.
Less than 30 seconds later, at an altitude of about 45 miles, the coiffure capsule is released to fly on its own.
While the reusable booster heads back to landing on a nearby pad, the coiffure sheathing continues upwards on an unpowered, ballistic trajectory, reaching a maximum altitude of just above 62 miles three-and-a-half minutes subsequently takeoff.
The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), an international body based in Switzerland that certifies aerospace records, considers an altitude of 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, as the dividing line between the discernible atmosphere and space.
Approaching the top of the trajectory, Shatner and his crewmates will experience nearly three minutes of weightlessness, enough time to unstrap and float about the cabin while enjoying spectacular views of World through vi windows more than a iii feet tall and nearly ii-and-a-one-half feet wide.
Plunging back into the lower atmosphere, the capsule will speedily decelerate, subjecting the passengers to more than than five times the normal force of gravity, before three large parachutes unfurl, lowering the craft to a gentle touchdown a few miles from the launch pad.
From liftoff to landing: almost x minutes. Virgin passengers enjoy a longer flight, virtually ninety minutes from carrier jet takeoff to spaceplane landing, only the time spent "in space" is roughly the aforementioned.
Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/10/12/captain-kirk-heading-to-space-on-blue-origins-second-human-launch/
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