William Shatner Prepares To Be Oldest Person Ever To Travel Into Space
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – Legendary actor William Shatner is set to become the older person to launch into space when he blasts off from West Texas Wednesday morning aboard a Blue Origin rocket.
The 90-year-old "Star Trek" star and his crew spoke to "CBS Mornings" co-host Gayle King Monday about the historic voyage, which is just the second flight with humans by Blue Origin, the space travel company founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
The launch is scheduled for 6:30 a.m. Pacific time. The flight was originally slated for Tuesday morning, but was pushed back a day because of high winds.
Shatner will be joined by three others on his trip: Audrey Powers, Blue Origin's vice president of Mission and Flight Operations, along with Chris Boshuizen and Glen de Vries.
According to CBS News, the group will travel in the New Shepard capsule to an altitude of 62 miles, where they'll spend three to four minutes of weightlessness before descending back to earth.
Shatner told King he relishes the fact he would be oldest person to travel to the boundary of outer space.
"Captain Kirk, we were all talking about you this weekend, and they said, 'this is a piece of cake for him because he's done it before,'" King told Shatner. "And I said, 'listen, that was a TV show, he never left the ground.' So how are you feeling?"
"How wise of you talk about a piece of cake, and the remnants of that piece of cake," Shatner responded. "This is no piece of cake."
This marks only the second Blue Origin flight. On July 20, Bezos himself blasted off with his brother and two others for a 10-minute trip into space.