When it comes to the topic of space travel, there’s a battle of wills for two famous men named William.
Prince William and William Shatner don’t see eye to eye when it comes to space exploration.
Just one day after the “Star Trek” star made history as the oldest person in space — aboard the Jeff Bezos-powered Blue Origin New Shepard rocket — the British royal criticized space travel.
Although he didn’t name the Amazon founder or actor many know as Captain Kirk, the Duke of Cambridge told BBC: “We need some of the world’s greatest brains and minds fixed on trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live.”
When asked to respond to the Prince’s comments, Shatner talked about how his royal highness was barking up the wrong tree.
“He’s a lovely Englishman. He’s going to be king of England one day. He’s a lovely, gentle, educated man, but he’s got the wrong idea,” he told Entertainment Tonight.
“The idea here is not to go, ‘Yeah, look at me. I’m in space.’ The landing that consumed all that … energy and people to take a look and go, ‘Oh, look at that.’ No,” Shatner clarified. “I would tell the prince, and I hope the prince gets the message, this is a baby step into the idea of getting industry up there, so that all those polluting industries, especially, for example, the industries that make electricity … off of Earth.”
“We’ve got all the technology, the rockets, to send the things up there … You can build a base 250, 280 miles above the Earth and send that power down here, and they catch it, and they then use it, and it’s there,” Shatner continued. “All it needs is … somebody as rich as Jeff Bezos [to say], ‘Let’s go up there.'”
“The prince is missing the point,” the 90-year television trailblazer doubled down. “The point is these are the baby steps to show people [that] it’s very practical. You can send somebody like me up into space.”
As far as Prince William’s argument that there are more pressing issues on Earth, Shatner didn’t disagree, but also noted how both can be accomplished.
“So fix some of the stuff down here,” Shatner said. “But we can curl your hair and put lotion on your face at the same time.”