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William Shatner Set To Become Oldest Person To Go Into Space

William Shatner Set To Become Oldest Person To Go Into Space

The Star Trek star is rumoured to be on board for Jeff Bezos's next space mission in October.

Anish Vij

Anish Vij

One huge step for man and one huge step for William Shatner as rumours suggest he is set to become the oldest person to go to space.

The 90-year-old Star Trek star is said to part of Jeff Bezos's next space outing in the New Shepard capsule, according to TMZ.

Reports say Shatner will board on the 15-minute civilian flight scheduled to take off in October.

Alamy

However, it is still unknown whether Shatner will rock up to the launch wearing a Capt. Kirk uniform.

As amazing as that would be, I wouldn't get your hopes up.

TMZ also claim the mission is set to be filmed for an upcoming documentary with the Discovery Network about the special.

Shatner has previously spoken about his desire to go into outer space and last year, he shared a photoshopped image of himself in a spacesuit on Twitter and asked NASA whether he could join the SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo-2's commercial spaceflight to the International Space Station.

"Just in case, the suit does fit!" he wrote alongside the image.

The actor also hinted he may be up for a trip to space at an online San Diego Comic-Con panel which took place on 24 July 2020, saying: "There's a possibility that I'm going to go up for a brief moment and come back down."

The first flight to space occurred on 20 July and the 59-foot New Shepard rocket took Bezos and three other passengers to the top of the sky.

Alongside Bezos on the flight was his brother Mark, Wally Funk - one of 13 female pilots who went through the same tests as Nasa's Mercury 7 astronauts in the early 1960s but never made it into space because only men were allowed - and Oliver Daemen.

The latter was an 18-year-old physics student who took the place of a $28 million auction winner who was too busy to make the trip.

Bezos has dreamt of flying to space since he was a child, and two months ago (19 July), said he was 'ready and not nervous'.

"I know it's going to change me and I'm excited to find out how," Bezos told CNN.

"We really believe this flight is safe - I had friends say to me, 'How about the second flight or the third flight, why do you have to go on the first flight?' and the point is that we know the vehicle's safe.

"If the vehicle is not safe for me, it's not safe for anyone. We have never raced. We have taken this one step at a time, we're ready."

Featured Image Credit: Alamy

Topics: jeff bezos, US News, space