The Star Trek actor William Shatner must wait another day to boldly go into space for real, after the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin company pushed this week’s launch target of its New Shepard vehicle to Wednesday.
“Due to forecasted winds on Tuesday 12 October, Blue Origin’s mission operations team has made the decision to delay the launch of NS-18 and is now targeting Wednesday 13 October,” the company said in a statement.
Shatner, best known for playing Captain James T Kirk in the original Star Trek television series and a series of films, will be part of a four-person crew aboard the suborbital NS-18 mission.
The Canadian-born thespian has been a little windy himself, telling an audience at New York Comic Con this week: “I’m terrified. I know! I’m Captain bloody Kirk and I’m terrified!”
The 90-year-old actor also said Bezos had told him: “You’ll be the oldest guy in space.”
“I don’t want to be the oldest guy in space,” Shatner said he replied. “I’m Captain Kirk!”
The current oldest person to have gone into space is Wally Funk, a former test pilot who was 82 when she accompanied Bezos, his brother and paying customer Oliver Daemen on the first Blue Origin flight. At 18, Daemen is the youngest person to have gone into space.
Shatner will fly as a guest. Blue Origin has said it has also sold nearly $100m in tickets.
On Sunday, Blue Origin also said its mission operations team had confirmed the New Shepard vehicle met all requirements and the astronauts including Shatner had begun their training.