Blue Origin plans to blast William Shatner into space on its New Shepard rocket in October, reports say
Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
- "Star Trek" actor William Shatner is reportedly going to space aboard a Blue Origin rocket.
- The 15-minute civilian flight is expected to take place in October, TMZ reported.
- Sources close to Shatner told TMZ that the flight will be filmed for an upcoming documentary.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
William Shatner is preparing for a trip to space aboard Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket, according to reports.
TMZ first reported that the actor who played Captain Kirk on "Star Trek" is expected to blast off on an upcoming October civilian flight in the New Shepard capsule. It has not yet been announced who will join him.
At 90 years old, Shatner will reportedly be the oldest person to be launched into space. The flight will be the second for Blue Origin, following its founder Jeff Bezos' trip in July.
On that trip, Bezos left Earth alongside his brother Mark, 82-year-old aviator Wally Funk and Dutch teen Oliver Daemen. The group soaked up stunning views from heights of 66.5 miles above Earth on a flight that lasted about 11 minutes, Insider's Morgan Mc-Fall Johnsen reported.
Though he hasn't confirmed the reports yet, sources close to Shatner told TMZ that the 15-minute October flight will be filmed for a documentary.
Shatner has previously expressed his interest to travel to space. Last year, he tweeted a photoshopped image of himself in a spacesuit to NASA asking if he could join the SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo-2 commercial spaceflight to the International Space Station.
"BTW @NASA - just in case; the suit does fit!" he wrote in a caption.
Then in July, during a panel at San Diego Comic-Con panel, Shatner said: "There's a possibility that I'm going to go up for a brief moment and come back down." This was a reference to NASA's Artemis program, which aims to transport people to the moon in 2024, Space.com reported.