Watch William Shatner gaze at Earth from space in awe during Blue Origin's launch (video)

We finally have our first look at William Shatner's first real trip to space after decades portraying a legendary "Star Trek" captain and it looks like the view was amazing. 

"Oh, wow!" Shatner says in a video released by Blue Origin, which launched the "Star Trek" actor and three others on a suborbital trip Wednesday (Oct. 13). "No description can equal this."

While the quarters of the Blue Origin's New Shepard space capsule Shatner rode to space in are not as roomy as that of the U.S.S. Enterprise he captained in fiction, a new video from spacecraft provider Blue Origin shows Shatner and his four crewmates glued to the windows during the microgravity phase of the flight.

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William Shatner floats in front if his window, with the Earth visible in the background, during Blue Origin's New Shepard launch on Oct. 13, 2021 in this video still. (Image credit: Blue Origin)

Shatner chuckles repeatedly while looking at the view of Earth, while his crewmate Audrey Powers, Blue Origin's vice president of mission and flight operations, exclaims, "Holy hell!"

The crew members were able to unstrap during the apogee of the NS-18 mission's suborbital flight, which lasted just over 10 minutes. The capsule reached a maximum altitude of nearly 66 miles (106 km), 4 miles higher than the widely recognized boundary of space.

"This was the voyage of the RSS First Step today," Blue Origin wrote in a Twitter video description. "Its mission: encounter Earth from incredible views at apogee."

William Shatner (right) floats inside Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft during his record-breaking launch on Oct. 13, 2021 in this video still. (Image credit: Blue Origin)
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Also on the flight were Glen de Vries, vice chair for life sciences and healthcare at the French software company Dassault Systèmes and Chris Boshuizen, co-founder of the Earth-observation company Planet. 

But it was Shatner who took the lion's share of the coverage, as the fictional space captain became the oldest person in space at age 90, on only the second-ever crewed spaceflight for Blue Origin.

The passenger crew of Blue Origin's NS-18 space tourist flight poses with their New Shepard capsule after landing back on Earth on Oct. 13, 2021. They are: (from left): Audrey Powers, William Shatner, Chris Boshuizen and Glen de Vries. (Image credit: Blue Origin)

After the flight, he was moved to tears during a press conference as he explained his feelings upon looking out the window.

"What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine. I'm so filled with emotion about what just happened ... it's extraordinary," Shatner said, while talking to Blue Origin Jeff Bezos (who embarked on the first crewed flight on July 20). 

"I hope I never recover, that I can maintain what I feel now," Shatner continued. "I don't want to lose it. It's so much larger than me and life.

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Elizabeth Howell
Staff Writer, Spaceflight

Elizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022 covering diversity, education and gaming as well. She was contributing writer for Space.com for 10 years before joining full-time. Elizabeth's reporting includes multiple exclusives with the White House and Office of the Vice-President of the United States, an exclusive conversation with aspiring space tourist (and NSYNC bassist) Lance Bass, speaking several times with the International Space Station, witnessing five human spaceflight launches on two continents, flying parabolic, working inside a spacesuit, and participating in a simulated Mars mission. Her latest book, "Why Am I Taller?", is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams. Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota, a Bachelor of Journalism from Canada's Carleton University and a Bachelor of History from Canada's Athabasca University. Elizabeth is also a post-secondary instructor in communications and science at several institutions since 2015; her experience includes developing and teaching an astronomy course at Canada's Algonquin College (with Indigenous content as well) to more than 1,000 students since 2020. Elizabeth first got interested in space after watching the movie Apollo 13 in 1996, and still wants to be an astronaut someday. Mastodon: https://qoto.org/@howellspace