Whether You’re From New Jersey Or Vulcan: Kirk In Space Is Cool

William Shatner, who portrayed the iconic Captain James T. Kirk to Star Trekkies will actually fly into outer space this Wednesday, October 13, 2021.

The flight was set to launch tomorrow but was postponed due to expected high winds.

Shatner, 90 will become the first cast member of Star Trek to liftoff for the final frontier aboard a Blue Origin suborbital rocket.

"I plan to be looking out the window with my nose pressed against the window, the only thing that I don't want to see is a little gremlin looking back at me," said Shatner.

This is a reference to a very famous episode of Rod Seling’s, “The Twilight Zone.”

Shatner will become the oldest person to ever go to space.

Shatner, as Captain Kirk, commanded the USS Enterprise (forgive me, I just have to write this) on a five-year mission "to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before." That felt good!

Shatner’s actual exploration will be far shorter, 62 miles high, where he will experience four minutes of weightlessness and be able to personally observe the curvature of planet Earth; something very few have ever done in history.

Shatner will be joined on tomorrow’s flight by Audrey Powers, Blue Origin's vice president of mission and flight operations, Planet Labs co-founder Chris Boshuizen, and Glen de Vries, a co-founder of clinical research platform Medidata Solutions.

It will be a 10-minute flight from a West Texas base back to Earth.

Star Trek has been very influential in the pop corner. Here’s one fun fact:

In 1976 the first Space Shuttle was named "Enterprise" following a letter-writing campaign by fans that persuaded then-President, Gerald Ford, to approve the name.

It was a case of art becoming reality.

NASA hired Nichelle Nichols (Lieutenant Nyota Uhura on Star Trek) in the 1970s to help recruit new astronauts, and numerous other cast members have voiced official documentaries or given talks on behalf of NASA.

In 1968, Shatner and Nichols made history when they shared the first interracial kiss in American television history.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is a Mega-fan of Star Trek.

Star Trek was very popular during the mid-to-late 1960s when America was in a space race to the moon with The Soviet Union.

Shatner going to space is fitting closure, as Star Trek-inspired generations of astronauts who have followed.