It was a seemingly typical autumn day when actor William Shatner suited up,

stepped into a starship and for the upteenth time in his career, prepared to boldly go where no man has gone before. He'd enacted this ritual

countless times while portraying the beloved James T. Kirk, Captain of Star Trek's USS Enterprise,

but this was different. Today, you see, he wasn't simply playing an astronaut on TV. No,

on October 13th of 2021, William Shatner actually became one. After months of

flight simulations and training courses, the actor joined three fellow voyagers aboard the Blue Origin

Rocket New Shepard NS18, which successfully blasted off for a 10-minute-long suborbital space flight.

At 90 years old, Shatner became the oldest living person to ever visit outer space.

It's hard to imagine how significant that moment must have felt for him.

After all, this is a guy whose name has been synonymous with space travel since 1966,

three years before the moon landing, and here

he was, finally leaving the Earth's atmosphere for the very first time.

You would probably expect that it was a joyful experience, a full-circle moment.

Shatner himself certainly thought that it would be, but as it turned out, the reality was

something far different.

I love the mysteries of the universe, he later wrote, reflecting on the voyage. I love all the questions

that have come to us over thousands of years of exploration and hypothesis. Stars exploding

years ago, their light traveling to us years later, black holes absorbing energy,

satellites showing us entire galaxies in areas thought to be devoid of matter entirely.

All of that has thrilled me for years.

But when I looked in the opposite direction, into space, there was no mystery, no majestic

awe to behold.

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