On October 13, 2021, at 14:49 UTC, a Blue Origin New Shepard rocket launched on the NS-18 mission. Onboard were four total passengers: two paying passengers, Dr. Chris Boshuizen, co-founder of commercial orbit imaging company Planet Labs, and Glen De Vries, CEO of Medidata, a medical research company. Also on the flight were two guests of Blue Origin: former Star Trek actor William Shatner and Audrey Powers, Vice President of New Shepard Operations.

The countdown was nominal with the usual slight delays and even included a personal hatch closing from Jeff Bezos after the spaceflight participants boarded the capsule. Ten minutes and seventeen seconds after launch, the capsule successfully landed a few kilometers away from the launch pad. The booster returned for a safe landing back at the landing pad shortly before the capsule touched down.

We’ve seen New Shepard flights before, and even though it was just another nominal mission from a technical standpoint, there was something different about this one. 

It would be a disservice to not mention how profoundly the experience affected William Shatner. We don’t often get to see people reflecting on their experience of seeing the Earth instead of just being on Earth immediately after experiencing it. While the rest of the passengers were celebrating their flight with lots of cheering and the almost inevitable spraying of bottles of champagne, Shatner was standing off to the side lost in his thoughts. He wasn’t talking to the camera. He wasn’t talking to the other passengers. He was clearly reflecting on what he had just experienced.

After a bit, he talked quietly with Jeff Bezos — who had been trying to bring him into the festivities — about his experience, recounting when the sky changed from blue to black and being able to see the planet as a ball hanging in space. This wasn’t scripted; it almost certainly wasn’t even meant for the cameras hovering around him and Bezos. It was a very personal conversation between him and Bezos that happened to be caught by the microphone.

This reaction to space isn’t unusual. It even has a name – “The Overview Effect” – and has been described by many astronauts in similar ways.

With this flight, William Shatner, who is 90, became the oldest person to fly in space, displacing Wally Funk who was 82 when she flew on the previous New Shepard mission a few months ago.

More Information

Blue Origin press release

Launch and landing video

VIDEO: Today Show interview with William Shatner