By Leah Crane
William Shatner Barry Brecheisen/WireImage via Getty Images
Captain Kirk is going to abstraction – for existent this time. Actor William Shatner, who played James T. Kirk connected Star Trek, is acceptable to instrumentality a travel aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket connected 12 October. At 90 years old, helium volition beryllium the oldest idiosyncratic ever to sojourn space, taking the rubric from aviator Wally Funk, who trained to beryllium an astronaut successful the 1960s, but didn’t get to spell to abstraction until July 2021.
Funk was a rider aboard the first crewed New Shepard flight, on with the company’s billionaire laminitis Jeff Bezos, his member Mark Bezos and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen, whose financier begetter bought his spot arsenic the company’s archetypal paying passenger. The 12 October motorboat volition beryllium the 2nd to transportation passengers.
Shatner volition beryllium joined by 3 different unit members: Blue Origin enforcement Audrey Powers, outer entrepreneur and erstwhile NASA technologist Chris Boshuizen and Glen de Vries, a backstage aviator and the co-founder of the bundle institution Medidata.
The formation itself volition beryllium akin to the archetypal one, taking the passengers to an altitude of astir 100 kilometres implicit the people of astir 11 minutes. The trade is autonomous, truthful the unit members don’t person to steer it done the formation – they tin conscionable beryllium backmost and bask the ride.
This announcement comes connected the heels of an open letter published by 21 existent and erstwhile Blue Origin employees alleging that the institution fosters a enactment situation “rife with sexism” successful which nonrecreational disagreement is “actively stifled”. The missive besides expressed concerns astir the information of the New Shepard rocket: “Some of america felt that with the resources and unit available, leadership’s contention to motorboat astatine specified a breakneck velocity was earnestly compromising formation safety.”
Blue Origin has denied the claims successful the letter. In a statement, it said: “Blue Origin has nary tolerance for favoritism oregon harassment of immoderate kind. We supply galore avenues for employees, including a 24/7 anonymous hotline, and volition promptly analyse immoderate caller claims of misconduct. We basal by our information grounds and judge that New Shepard is the safest abstraction conveyance ever designed oregon built.”
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