May I be astonished if in any of the many hours that, in my childhood and youth, I spent seeing Captain Kirk (William Shatner) exploring the Universe aboard the NCC-1701 Enterprise while seducing the nativesIt crossed my mind that at some point in his life, but in his real life, the actor of Canadian origin and a myth for more than a generation, would get to get on a ship and fly into space.
And yet, as we told you a few weeks ago, it really happened. On board the New Shepard of Blue Origin, in the meridian of the month of October, William Shatner rose above 100 kilometers from the earth’s surface, thus crossing the Kármán line, considered by many as the division between the earth’s atmosphere and outer space. It is not, as we heard in the introduction to Star Trek, the last frontier, but in any case the first of the human being in his space journey, but without a doubt it is a milestone for the actor, who also has become older by traveling into space.
And in case epic was missing in the story, after landing William Shatner quoted none other than Sir Isaac Newton, “I do not know what it may seem to the world, but for me it has been like a child playing on the seashore having fun now and then finding a softer pebble or a more beautiful shell than normal, while the great ocean of truth spreads undiscovered before my eyes”. With that gift of speech, it is not surprising that she enjoyed such a reputation among the locals.
Of course, such a set of remarkable elements of this flight could not be left there and, seen with a bit of hindsight, it seems clear that this is something that was more than decided from the moment that William Shatner made the decision to get on the New Shepard to space excursion. And as we can read on Yahoo! Finance, his space adventure will be reflected in a documentary produced by Blue Origin and Amazon.
In the documentary we can see not only the flight itself, but also what happened before and after it, and William Shatner will have to share the limelight with the rest of the flight participants, Chris Boshuizen, co-founder of the nanosatellites company Planet Labs, Glen de Vries, co-founder of a clinical research platform, and Audrey Powers, Vice President of Missions and Flight Operations at Blue Origin. It would be great if they took on the roles of Spock, McCoy and Uhura, but I understand this is a lot to ask..
Be that as it may, it is evident that Blue Origin needs to make its space flights as visible as possible as a means of monetization and image, since its aspirations to participate in NASA’s lunar adventure have not finally been fulfilled, and that its current space station project will require the company to show enough muscle to be able to undertake such a challenge . William Shatner can make a great brand ambassador, and I bet this idea has been around the marketing departments at Amazon and Blue Origin for quite some time.
And beware, the latter is not a criticism. I have already raised my doubts on more than one occasion about the usefulness of this type of flight in the face of its consequences, but I must confess that, although I was more of The New Generation, and if I must stay in the classic then of Spock, know that William Shatner has flown in space, and that also has gotten a little closer to Gene Roddenberry (the created of the series, and whose ashes were thrown into space), I find something, at least, endearing. And now, as the trekkers say, May the force be with you … no, no, it was a joke: Long live, and prosperous.
