Following a successful flight with its supreme leader founder, Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin will launch William Shatner to the edge of space later this week.
Originally scheduled to take place on 12th October, the launch of mission NS-18 has been delayed to Wednesday 13th October due to strong winds.
While Shatner is the big name on board NS-18 he won’t be alone. Joining the Star Trek star will be Dr Chris Boshuizen who is the founder of Planet Labs. Rather interestingly, Bozhuizen worked at the NASA Ames Research Center between 2008 and 2012.
Glen de Vries will also be on the flight along with Blue Origin’s own Audrey Power who oversees all flight missions for New Shepard operations.
“I’m so proud and humbled to fly on behalf of Team Blue, and I’m excited to continue writing Blue’s human spaceflight history,” Powers said of her upcoming flight.
“I was part of the amazing effort we assembled for New Shepard’s Human Flight Certification Review, a years-long initiative completed in July 2021. As an engineer and lawyer with more than two decades of experience in the aerospace industry, I have great confidence in our New Shepard team and the vehicle we’ve developed,” she added.
The launch of NS-18 is set to take off at 15:30 on Wednesday afternoon and coverage will be hosted on the Blue Origin website.
While Blue Origin set the record for taking the oldest person to space on 20th July, Shatner will become the oldest person to fly to space should this mission launch on Wednesday.
“I’ve heard about space for a long time now. I’m taking the opportunity to see it for myself. What a miracle,” Shatner said in a statement.
