FILE PHOTO: Actor William Shatner performs at The Canyon Club in Agoura, California October 24, 2013. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
VAN HORN, Texas — The company of billionaire U.S. businessman Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin, is set for its second suborbital tourism flight on Wednesday, with actor William Shatner – who embodied the promise of space travel on the “Star Trek” TV series and films – among the four-person all-civilian crew poised to blast off in Texas.
Shatner, at age 90, is due to become the oldest person ever in space. He and his crewmates are scheduled for a 9 a.m. (1000 EDT/1400 GMT) takeoff aboard the 60-foot-tall (18.3 meters-tall) fully autonomous New Shepard spacecraft at Blue Origin’s launch site about 20 miles (32 km) outside the rural west Texas town of Van Horn.
Joining Shatner for what the company said is expected to be a roughly 11-minute journey are former NASA engineer Chris Boshuizen, clinical research entrepreneur Glen de Vries, and Blue Origin vice president and engineer Audrey Powers.
Blue Origin said the astronauts will experience about three to four minutes of weightlessness and travel above the internationally recognized boundary of space known as the Karman Line, about 62 miles (100 km) above Earth. The crew capsule is due to return to the Texas desert under parachutes.
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The flight, previously scheduled for Tuesday, was pushed back a day for wind-related reasons. Winds were light and skies were clear ahead of launch time.
The four crew members went through training on Tuesday and the mission team completed a flight-readiness evaluation to ensure “all systems are go for launch,” Blue Origin said on Twitter. Ahead of the launch, the astronauts are due to enter the crew capsule and get strapped into their seats.
