Eva Deschamps / October 13, 2021
The Blue Origin capsule with four passengers on board, including William Shatner who played Captain Kirk in the cult series Star Trek, landed Wednesday in West Texas after a journey of a few minutes in space.
The Canadian actor became at 90 years the oldest person to reach the final frontier, and lived in space the most intense experience of his life, according to AFP. What you have given me is the most intense experience I can imagine. I am so moved by what just happened. It's extraordinary, he said as he stepped out of the Blue Origin capsule to company founder Jeff Bezos, who welcomed him.
his was the second manned rocket flight for billionaire Jeff Bezos' company, which intends to establish itself as a major player in the coveted space tourism sector. Also on board were two contractors who paid for the trip, and a Blue Origin manager. Jeff Bezos had also made the trip to space aboard this vehicle in July.
The rocket took off Wednesday in the vertical, then the capsule was detached in flight, and so propelled, has exceeded the line of Karman which marks, at 100 km of altitude, the border of the space according to the international convention. It then started a free fall to fall back on Earth, braked by three huge parachutes.
The flight lasted, in total, only about ten minutes. Star Trek, broadcast from 1966 for only three seasons, told the adventures of the USS Enterprise, launched on a mission of interstellar exploration. The series became a cult for science fiction fans, including Jeff Bezos. Broadcast at the time of the early days of space exploration, before the Americans set foot on the Moon, it also helped to spark the nation's - and the world's - interest in NASA's program.