VAN HORN, Texas -- Hollywood's Captain Kirk, 90-year-old William Shatner, blasted into space Wednesday in a convergence of science fiction and science reality, reaching the final frontier aboard a ship built by Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin company.
The "Star Trek" actor and three fellow passengers hurtled to an altitude of 66.5 miles over the West Texas desert in the fully automated capsule, then it safely parachuted back to Earth. The flight lasted just over 10 minutes.
"What you have given me is the most profound experience," an exhilarated Shatner told Bezos after climbing out the hatch, the words spilling from him in a soliloquy almost as long as the flight. "I hope I never recover from this. I hope that I can maintain what I feel now. I don't want to lose it."
He said going from the blue sky to the utter blackness of space was a moving experience: "In an instant you go, 'Whoa, that's death.' That's what I saw."
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Shatner became the oldest person in space, eclipsing the previous record -- set by a passenger on a similar jaunt on a Bezos spaceship in July -- by eight years. The flight included about three minutes of weightlessness and a view of the curvature of the Earth.
Sci-fi fans reveled in the opportunity to see the man best known as the brave and principled commander of the starship Enterprise boldly go where no star of American TV has gone before. The internet went wild, with Trekkies quoting favorite lines from Kirk, including, "Risk: Risk is our business. That's what this starship is all about."
"This is a pinch-me moment for all of us to see Capt. James Tiberius Kirk go to space," Blue Origin launch commentator Jacki Cortese said before liftoff. She said she, like so many others, was drawn to space by shows like "Star Trek."
NASA sent best wishes ahead of the flight, tweeting: "You are, and always shall be, our friend."
The flight brought priceless star power to Bezos' space-tourism business, given its built-in appeal to baby boomers, celebrity watchers and space enthusiasts. Shatner starred in TV's original "Star Trek" from 1966-69, when the U.S. was racing for the moon, and went on to appear in a string of "Star Trek" movies.
Bezos is a huge "Star Trek" fan -- the Amazon founder had a cameo as an alien in one of the later movies -- and Shatner rode free Tuesday as his invited guest.
As a favor to Bezos, Shatner took up into space some "Star Trek" tricorders and communicators -- sort of the iPhones of the future -- that Bezos made when he was a 9-year-old Trekkie. Bezos said his mother had saved them for 48 years.
Bezos drove the four crew members to the launch pad, accompanied them to the platform high above the ground and cranked the hatch shut after they climbed aboard the 60-foot rocket. He was there to greet them when the capsule floated back to Earth under its brilliant blue-and-red parachutes.
"Hello, astronauts. Welcome to Earth!" a jubilant Bezos said as he opened the hatch of the New Shepard capsule, named for first American in space, Alan Shepard.
The actor said he was struck by the vulnerability of Earth and the relative sliver of its atmosphere.
"Everybody in the world needs to do this. Everybody in the world needs to see," he said. "To see the blue color whip by, and now you're staring into blackness, that's the thing. The covering of blue, this sheath, this blanket, this comforter of blue that we have around, we say, 'Oh, that's blue sky.' And then suddenly you shoot through it all, and you're looking into blackness, into black ugliness."
Blue Origin said it plans one more passenger flight this year and several more in 2022. Sounding like the humane and idealistic Captain Kirk himself, the company said its goal is to "democratize space."
The flight brought to 597 the number of humans who have flown in space.
"Today's launch is a testimony to the power of the imagination, and we should not lose sight of that power," University of Rochester astrophysicist Adam Frank said in an email.
"William Shatner may be 'just an actor,' but Captain James T. Kirk represents a collective dream of a hopeful future in space that 'Star Trek,' and science fiction in general, gave us all," Frank continued. "Bezos gave Shatner a seat on his rocket because he, like millions of others, fell in love with 'Star Trek' and its vision of a boundless frontier for humanity."
