Well, by now a few hundred people anyway.

Space that is. The final frontier and all that.

Tomorrow in the USA, dreams will enter reality when probably the most famous spaceship commander – Captain James T. Kirk – will fly into space.

More precisely, the actor who portrayed him, William Shatner, will fly into space. For all of fifteen minutes of a fully automated, sub-orbital flight on the Blue Origin spacecraft and rocket.

Shatner will establish a couple of records. He’ll be the first actor to fly into space and the oldest person to do so at 90 years of age.

Of course this is all a publicity stunt for Blue Origin, which has badly lagged the likes of SpaceX in developing spacecraft and rockets, despite having the wealth and management nous of one of the planet’s richest men, Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame, behind it.

But it’s still fun to think that the guy who played one of the most famous SF characters in history, starting in the 1960’s, will actually go into the realm where he has played out so many fictional stories.

Good luck Captain.

Just one aside: James Lilek’s long-time blog, The Bleat, has some fun with this story:

What if he doesn’t come back?

Oh perish the thought, you say, but it’s possible. First of all, there’s the dark comic angle: a warning light goes off, the ship bucks, and you know everyone will instinctively look at him for guidance.

I would.
…
But Shatner dying in space would be an utterly unique end to a career that no one could’ve predicted back in the late 60s.

No, actually, they could have. When the show went off the air we were still on track to keep exploring, right? A space station soon, a moon base by the late 80s. Why, of course it would have been plausible for Shatner to die in a moon-shuttle accident in 2021.

If I were Shatner, and I was toting up the odds, I’d think: what if? Could happen. Will there by time to say something? If so, what?

There are several things he could say on the last transmission.

Live long and prosper?