"It was unbelievable," said the 90-year-old actor following a 10-minute space trip. Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket took off around 14:49 GMT after experiencing two brief delays, with the crew reaching beyond the planet's atmosphere and returning to the Texas desert.
"What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine. I'm so filled with emotion about what just happened," Shatner told Jeff Bezos, the founder of the Blue Origin company.
Video footage showed the domed shaped crew capsule separated from the rocket, floating in space as the speed slowed to zero before beginning a controlled descent slowed by rockets and eventually a series of three parachutes.
A recovery team raced to greet the crew, still sealed after plopping down in the Texas desert as the world awaited word from Shatner himself.
A recovery team raced to greet the crew, still sealed after plopping down in the Texas desert amid clouds of dust.
A recovery team raced to greet the crew, still sealed after plopping down in the Texas desert amid clouds of dust.
"That was unlike anything they described," Shatner said as the capsule descended toward Earth. "I’m overwhelmed. I know I did it."
Shatner and three other individuals blasted off from a desert launch site in the state of Texas for a ten-minute sub-orbital flight that included several minutes of weightless floating about 60 miles high, widely regarded as the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space.
13 October 2021, 13:00 GMT
The actor was joined by Blue Origin Vice President Audrey Powers, co-founder of the Earth-imaging satellite company Planet, Chris Boshuizen, and French healthcare executive Glen de Vries.
It was the second crewed flight for Blue Origin. The first mission in July carried the company’s founder Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark, Dutch teenager Oliver Daemen featured and aviator Wally Funk. At age 82, Funk held the record as the oldest human in space until Wednesday’s flight by Shatner.