William Shatner Barry Brecheisen/WireImage by way of Getty Photos
Captain Kirk goes to house – for actual this time. Actor William Shatner, who performed James T. Kirk on Star Trek, is about to make a journey aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket on 12 October. At 90 years outdated, he would be the oldest particular person ever to go to house, taking the title from aviator Wally Funk, who skilled to be an astronaut within the Sixties, however didn’t get to go to house till July 2021.
Funk was a passenger aboard the primary crewed New Shepard flight, together with the corporate’s billionaire founder Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen, whose financier father purchased his seat as the corporate’s first paying passenger. The 12 October launch would be the second to hold passengers.
Shatner will likely be joined by three different crew members: Blue Origin government Audrey Powers, satellite tv for pc entrepreneur and former NASA engineer Chris Boshuizen and Glen de Vries, a personal pilot and the co-founder of the software program firm Medidata.
The flight itself will likely be much like the primary one, taking the passengers to an altitude of about 100 kilometres over the course of about 11 minutes. The craft is autonomous, so the crew members don’t should steer it by means of the flight – they will simply sit again and benefit from the journey.
This announcement comes on the heels of an open letter revealed by 21 present and former Blue Origin workers alleging that the corporate fosters a piece atmosphere “rife with sexism” by which skilled disagreement is “actively stifled”. The letter additionally expressed issues in regards to the security of the New Shepard rocket: “A few of us felt that with the sources and workers obtainable, management’s race to launch at such a breakneck velocity was critically compromising flight security.”
Blue Origin has denied the claims within the letter. In an announcement, it mentioned: “Blue Origin has no tolerance for discrimination or harassment of any sort. We offer quite a few avenues for workers, together with a 24/7 nameless hotline, and can promptly examine any new claims of misconduct. We stand by our security report and imagine that New Shepard is the most secure house automobile ever designed or constructed.”
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