How to follow Captain Kirk's space flight live with Blue Origin

William Shatner will be part of a mission organized by Blue Origin. The flight is scheduled at 4 pm, Italian time. Here's how to follow it

Extract from a photo of the NS-18 crew. From our right to our left: Glen de Vries, Audrey Powers, William Shatner and Chris Boshuizen. (photo: Blue Origin) William Shatner, a 90-year-old actor known as Captain Kirk from Star Trek, made it to truly fly into Space. Shatner's dream, who thus becomes the oldest person to go to space, was realized thanks to the suborbital flight on the New Shepard spacecraft of the Blue Origin company owned by Jeff Bezos, which has already flown with passengers who have not been trained as astronauts in July.

Shatner will not be alone but will depart with Audrey Powers, vice president of Blue Origin, Chris Boshuizen, co-founder of Planet Labs for Earth Imaging, and Glen de Vries, co-founder of a well-known software platform for clinical research. The launch from the launch base in Texas is officially scheduled for 4pm, Italian time, and it will be possible to follow it through the live broadcast by the company starting at 2.30pm.

The details of the flight

The New Shepard NS-18 launcher (the 18th mission) will depart at 4 pm from the Texas desert, precisely from the platform called Launch Site One, and will make a flight lasting 10 intense minutes. It is not a short time considering that it is a s uborbital flight, that is, within 100 kilometers of height from the earth's surface (remember that Blue Origin is not the only one to carry out these private trips).

New Shepard is composed at the top of a pressurized capsule, equipped with large windows, which can hold up to 6 people. Then there is the rocket, 18 meters long, made up of various elements. At the top, a ring and aerodynamic fins stabilize the system and reduce the use of fuel. Then there are gears that favor a soft landing of the rocket, which is reused. After taking off, the capsule separates from the launcher at a height of about 76 kilometers from the earth's surface and continues its parabolic flight up to about 106 kilometers of altitude. The rocket lands just over 3 kilometers away from the launch point and then the capsule will return to the ground with a soft landing by a particular parachute.

90-year-old Captain Kirk in Space

“I've heard about space for so long to date,” says William Shatner, aka Captain Kirk, “and now I take the opportunity to see it for myself. What a miracle! ". In a BBC report we hear again Shatner's confident voice answering the question “Why do you want to go to Space? ”Jokingly explaining that he wanted to be able to say that he was the oldest person who took this action. And then more seriously he makes it clear that he wants to have a new point of view, see Space, Earth, and have a perspective that had never been shown to him before.

Captain Kirk's wish has thus become a reality afterwards. that the protagonist has already lived it in the fiction of the US series, one of the most popular in the history of television.

Here in Star Trek Captain Kirk is seated in front, next to Spock

An uncommon undertaking

As early as July 2021 Jeff Bezos took part in the first manned flight with his brother, together with his brother Mark and two other people, including 18-year-old Oliver Daemen and 82-year-old Wally Funk , until then the oldest person to have flown into space. To fly, an expensive undertaking for a private citizen and which requires being in excellent shape and health, it took about 2 days of training for the participants. You have to learn how to move in conditions of almost total absence of gravity (microgravity) without hitting others, prepare for the movements and movements related to departure and flight.


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Topics

Blue Origin Jeff Bezos Space Star Trek globalData.fldTopic = "Blue Origin , Jeff Bezos, Space, Star Trek "

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