Star Trek icon William Shatner was overcome with emotion as he landed on Earth, following his monumental flight into space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket.
He had earlier been blast into space on New Shepard alongside astronauts, Dr. Chris Boshuizen, Glen de Vries and Audrey Powers on a suborbital flight.
They were joined by Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos who was there to open the hatch as they landed on Earth.
Lost for words, the actor appeared to tear up as he described the vast nothingness of space.
He said: ‘The little things, weightlessness, but to see the blue colour whip by. And now you’re staring at the blackness. That’s the thing, the covering of blue…this comforter of blue we have around us.
‘Then the sudden you shoot through it all, you whip off the sheet and you’re looking at the black ugliness.
‘There is Mother Earth, comfort, and there is, is that death? I dont know? Is that the way death is?
‘Whip and it’s gone!’
He went on: ‘This experience is something unbelievable.
‘My stomach went up, this is so weird. But not as weird, as the covering of blue.’
Shatner called it the ‘most profound experience I can imagine’.
Wiping his eyes, he said: ‘I’m so filled with emotion, it’s extraordinary.
‘I hope I never recover from this.
‘Maintain what I feel now, I never want to lose it. It’s so much larger than me and life.’
Mark Bezos, the Amazon billionaire’s brother who flew on the first human flight of New Shepard, told the crew as they prepared to take off: ‘You lucky bastards.
It was only 10 weeks ago that I was sitting where you are, watching the countdown clock full of anticipation and excitement. Eager to feel a rumble of liftoff and the magesty of weightlessness.
‘The depth of my desire to fly again is hard to express.’
He then quoted Shatner’s Mr Spaceman: ‘Hey, Mr Spaceman, won’t you please take me along, I won’t do anything wrong. Hey, Mr Spaceman, won’t you please take me along for a ride.’
metr
