[imagesource: IBLIM/MEGA]

Captain James Kirk from Star Trek has just traversed fiction by going into space for real this time.

Canadian actor William Shatner, age 90, has also become the oldest person to travel to space, taking the title from Wally Funk, 82, who Blue Origin sent to space in July.

I guess these are the selling points that Jeff Bezos was after when he decided to send Shatner into space onboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket.

Bezos’ “dick-shaped rocket” takes its crew to zero gravity on a 10-minute suborbital flight, which goes up to the part of the atmosphere between space and the end of Earth’s sky.

Shatner started out with nerves that were out of this world, saying “I’m Captain Kirk, and I’m terrified” before the flight, but came back with emotions beyond words:

Image: BLUE ORIGIN/HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shut

His touch-down speech “seemed to touch on every corner of the galaxy”, writes the New York Post, talking about the thin line that separates us from life and death, the comfort of Earth’s blue, and the fragility and vulnerability of it all:

“Everybody in the world needs to do this!” a tearful Shatner told the second-richest man in the world while others celebrated over champagne in the background.

“To see the moon come and whip by — now you’re staring into blackness — that’s the thing,” he added.

“The covering of blue, this blanket, this comforter of blue we have around us. We think, ‘Oh, that’s blue sky,’ and all of a sudden you shoot through it and you whip the sheet off you and you’re looking into blackness, into black nothingness.

As you look down, there’s your blue down there with the black up there. There is Mother Earth and comfort and there is — is there death? I don’t know. Is that the way death is?” he asked.

Image: BLUE ORIGIN/HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK /SHUTTERSTOCK

Shatner thanked Bezos for the “most profound” experience he had ever had, and said that he hopes to “never recover from this”:

“I hope I can maintain what I feel now. I don’t want to ever lose it. It’s so much larger than me and life, and it hasn’t got anything to do with the little green hand or the little blue orb.

…”What’s keeping us alive is thinner than your skin, it’s a sliver, it’s negligible, this air. Oh my goodness, I’ve had a journey.”

Many folks on social media noted how poetic Shatners remarks were, while others joked that he may have been high in another way.

Shatner, playing Captain Kirk in Star Trek, commanded the starship USS Enterprise on its mission to “boldly go where no man has gone before”, notes The Telegraph:

The show was first broadcast in 1966 and inspired generations of devoted fans known as “Trekkies”.

It also helped galvanise interest in the real NASA programme to get to the moon. Mr Bezos is a Star Trek fan and invited Mr Shatner to go up.

At 90 years old, Shatner finally got to experience space for real, on a trip that is expected to provide a further boost for the burgeoning space tourism industry.

Here’s Shatner floating up in space, in absolute awe, while the rest of the crew play with toys around him:

You can watch the poetry of his touch-down speech in full over here:

VICE also has the full New Shephard mission webcast, which you can replay to watch the entire trip if you want.

Meanwhile, Prince William has openly criticised the ‘billionaires’ space race’, by saying that they should rather focus on fixing Earth’s problems first.

That would be nice.

[sources:newyorkpost&thetelegraph&vice]