Blue Origin successfully launches Star Trek actor William Shatner into space – IT Pro – News

Blue Origin successfully completed its second manned space flight on Wednesday afternoon. Four space tourists were on board the used New Shepard rocket, including 90-year-old Star Trek actor William Shatner.

Blue Origin launched the New Shepard rocket and its four occupants at 4.50 pm Dutch time into space. The company did this from a launch site in the Texas town of Van Horn. The rocket reached an altitude of more than 100 kilometers and thus passed the Kármán line.

The flight lasted about eleven minutes. The passengers were weightless for several minutes and then returned to Earth. The New Shepard rocket was initially scheduled to launch on Tuesday, October 12, but Blue Origin decided to postpone the launch by a day due to wind.

The rocket included Blue Origin vice president Audrey Powers and 90-year-old William Shatner. For many years Shatner played Captain James T. Kirk, the captain of the spaceship USS Enterprise in the science-fiction franchise Star Trek. Shatner is the oldest person to ever reach space. That record was previously held by 82-year-old aviation legend Wally Funk, who went on Blue Origin’s first manned tourist flight earlier this year.

The other passengers were Australian Chris Boshuizen and American Glen de Vries. Boshuizen previously worked as a researcher at NASA and is co-founder of Planet Labs. De Vries is co-founder of software company Medidata, which is used for clinical studies.

This was Blue Origin’s second commercial passenger flight. In July of this year, the company’s first commercial flight was successfully completed. At that time, Blue Origin CEO and former Amazon boss Jeff Bezos were on board, alongside his brother, Wally Funk and 18-year-old Dutchman Oliver Daemen. Blue Origin says it will launch another commercial spaceflight this year.

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