William Shatner's Blue Origin space trip delayed by weather
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
William Shatner's much-anticipated trip to the edge of space will have to wait a day because high winds in west Texas prompted spaceflight company Blue Origin to postpone the voyage.
Originally scheduled for Tuesday, the launch from the spaceport in Van Horn, Texas, will now take place at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, Blue Origin said in a statement Sunday.
"As part of today's Flight Readiness Review, the mission operations team confirmed the vehicle has met all mission requirements and astronauts began their training today," Blue Origin said. "Weather is the only gating factor for the launch window."
The National Weather Service predicted strong winds for the mountains north of Van Horn through Tuesday, and a hazardous weather outlook was in effect for the region Sunday as gusts were expected to reach nearly 75 mph.
Shatner, 90, would be the oldest person to travel to space when Blue Origin's New Shepard 4 vehicle, which includes a rocket engine and a capsule, reaches the boundary of space.
The suborbital limit of the mission, dubbed NS-18, means the "Star Trek" legend will boldly go where no nonagenarian has gone before for only a few minutes.
He is expected to be joined by three other passengers: Audrey Powers, Blue Origin's vice president of mission and flight operations; Glen de Vries, a co-founder of medical research platform Medidata; and Chris Boshuizen, a tech entrepreneur. The latter two paid for their tickets, expected to cost more than $250,000 each.
Shatner said on NBC's "TODAY" show last week that he had been invited. Amazon's executive chairman, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Blue Origin, tweeted that Shatner is described by the word "Legend."
Shatner expressed nonchalance about his expected spaceflight milestone. Asked how he would prepare for the voyage, he said, "I had some apple pie last night."
William Shatner to boldly go to space on Blue Origin rocket
He did have some seemingly well-thought-out words to describe the trip, telling "TODAY": "I'm going to see the vastness of space and the extraordinary miracle of our Earth and how fragile it is compared to the forces at work in the universe — that's really what I'm looking for."
In July Bezos himself took the company's official inaugural trip to space alongside his brother and two other people. It was the first unpiloted suborbital flight with an all-civilian crew.
I am looking forward to what he will have to say upon his return.
When I thought about how old Shatner is, I started to wonder about what's to be done about his body when he dies, and I thought to not bury him or cremate him, but to shoot his body into deep space, and that way he really will go where no man has ever gone before. Or am I being a little too macabre?
that's the primary reason this flight is suborbital. BO execs were worried that Shatner would be forced from the capsule by full orbit for annoying the other astronauts. /s
I believe some of James Doohan's (Scotty's) ashes were launched into space, and I found that to be very fitting.
Launching an intact body into space would be pretty expensive, I'd think. Scotty's ashes were part of the payload for an existing mission, so I doubt it was prohibitively expensive to give him that honor.
Good for him. I've been a Star Trek fan since I was a little kid. He has packed on some pounds over the years, may be too heavy for the transporter so a rocket makes sense.
In all seriousness, I hope he and everyone else has a great flight and returns safely.
There's something very appropriate about Kirk being launched to space on a ship that looks like a penis. And TBH, I think the character would likely agree.
It looks almost as silly as all the boats in shrinking Lake Oroville - so many recreational vehicles squandering fuel resources on a shrinking lake while running a gasoline motor in their drinking water.
Too bad....
I was kinda hoping we could shoot Donald Trump into outer space.
The Mexicans would pay for it (a one way ticket).
Captain James Tiberiius Kirk has finally boldly gone into the new frontier and retuned in one piece.
I guess that Scotty beamed him up after all.