William Shatner is ready for a real-life star trek.
The 90-year-old actor will be aboard the next space flight by Blue Origin, the aerospace company founded by Jeff Bezos announced Monday.
Shatner — who starred as Captain James T. Kirk on the original “Star Trek” series and seven of the franchise’s movies — will be one of four people on the New Shepard spacecraft for a launch set for Oct. 12. If all goes as planned, Shatner will be the oldest person to travel to space.
“I’ve heard about space for a long time now,” Shatner said in the announcement. “I’m taking the opportunity to see it for myself. What a miracle.”
Joining Shatner on the launch will be Audrey Powers, the vice president of missions and operations for Blue Origin, where she has worked since 2013.
Chris Boshuizen, a former NASA engineer, and Glen de Vries, founder of the clinical research group Medidata Solutions, will also be aboard the flight, which is scheduled to take off from West Texas at 9:30 a.m. Oct. 12.
Their launch comes less than three months after Blue Origin’s first human flight lifted off from West Texas on July 20 with Bezos on board.
Bezos, who founded Amazon, has a goal of sending customers to space through Blue Origin. The July space flight reached an altitude of 66 miles.
“My expectations were high, and they were dramatically exceeded,” Bezos said at the time.
Another member of that flight, 82-year-old Wally Funk, became the oldest person to go to space.
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