Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness. It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound. In the film “Contact,” when Jodie Foster’s character goes to space and looks out into the heavens, she lets out an astonished whisper, “They should’ve sent a poet.” I had a different experience, because I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us. I had thought that going into space would be the ultimate catharsis of that connection I had been looking for between all living things-that being up there would be the next beautiful step to understanding the harmony of the universe. Everything I had expected to see was wrong. And I was leaving her.Įverything I had thought was wrong. I could see the curvature of Earth, the beige of the desert, the white of the clouds and the blue of the sky. It was deep, enveloping, all-encompassing. It was unlike any blackness you can see or feel on Earth. 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. I love all the questions that have come to us over thousands of years of exploration and hypotheses. I continued my self-guided tour and turned my head to face the other direction, to stare into space. It was as if there was a wake trailing behind where we had just been, and just as soon as I’d noticed it, it disappeared. I looked down and I could see the hole that our spaceship had punched in the thin, blue-tinged layer of oxygen around Earth. I wanted, needed to get to the window as quickly as possible to see what was out there.

The other folks went straight into somersaults and enjoying all the effects of weightlessness. We got out of our harnesses and began to float around. Will I pass out? Will my face melt into a pile of mush? How many g’s can my ninety-year-old body handle?Īnd then, suddenly, relief. I don’t know how much more of this I can take, I thought. At three g’s, I felt my face being pushed down into my seat. At two g’s, I tried to raise my arm, and could barely do so. There was an instrument that told us how many g’s we were experiencing. As we ascended, I was at once aware of pressure. With all the attending noise, fire, and fury, we lifted off. This wasn’t it.Īpparently, the anomaly wasn’t too concerning, because thirty seconds later, we were cleared for launch and the countdown began. More importantly, why would they tell us that? There is a time for unvarnished honesty. What is currently in the engine that doesn’t belong there?! It’ll just be a few moments.”Īn anomaly in the engine?! That sounds kinda serious, doesn’t it?Īn anomaly is something that does not belong. “Sorry, folks, there’s a slight anomaly in the engine. In the simulator, I didn’t nail it every time, so as I sat there, waiting to take off, the importance of navigating weightlessness to get back and strap into the seat correctly was at the forefront of my mind. You have to strap yourself in in a specific order. We got ourselves situated inside the pod. Not enough to cancel, of course-I hold myself to be a professional, and I was booked. When the day finally arrived, I couldn’t get the Hindenburg out of my head. “Oh, you guys will rush in here if the rocket explodes,” a Blue Origin fellow responded just as casually. It’s all okay.” Sure, easy for them to say, I thought. Chris Boshuizen, had done various simulations and training courses to prepare, but you can only prepare so much for a trip out of Earth’s atmosphere! As if sensing that feeling in our group, the ground crew kept reassuring us along the way. Our group, consisting of me, tech mogul Glen de Vries, Blue Origin Vice President and former NASA International Space Station flight controller Audrey Powers, and former NASA engineer Dr. Then 90 years old, Shatner became the oldest living person to travel into space, but as the actor and author details below, he was surprised by his own reaction to the experience. In this exclusive excerpt from William Shatner’s new book, “ Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder,” the “ Star Trek” actor reflects on his voyage into space on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space shuttle on Oct.

Blue horizon launch