William Shatner, famous in the geek world for his portrayal of Captain James T. Kirk on Star Trek, will head into the final frontier on October 12th.
Or, at least the very edge of it.
This morning, Blue Origin, the space tourism company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, announced the final two members of its NS-18 crew: Shatner and Audrey Powers, vice president of Mission and Flight Operations at Blue Origin.
They will join former NASA astronaut Dr. Chris Boshuizen and Glen de Vries, vice-chair of Life Sciences & Healthcare at French company Dassault Systèmes on the mission.
Shatner shared the news on Twitter shortly after Blue Origin’s announcement.
NS-18, the New Shepheard rocket’s 18th flight (get it?), is scheduled to lift off from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in West Texas next Tuesday, October 12, at 8:30am Central Time (7:30am Eastern).
The flight will head up 62 miles, above the Kármán line, like Bezos’ flight on NS-16 did. The crew will spend their three minutes in space before heading back down to Earth.
No word on if Shatner will bring his phone to tweet from space, but given his prolific presence on the platform, hailing frequencies have a good chance of remaining open.
