William Shatner, the actor who portrayed Captain James T. Kirk on the original “Star Trek” TV series and its film adaptations, launched into space at 10 a.m. EDT on Oct. 13, 2021, aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital spacecraft. Liftoff was from Blue Origin’s launch site in West Texas with Shatner and three others aboard. Mr. Shatner’s trip on the rocket, developed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, lasted about 10 minutes.

Those aboard got to experience a short period of weightlessness as they climbed to a maximum altitude just above 60 miles. From there they were able to see the curvature of the Earth through the capsule’s big windows.

Mr. Shatner was joined on the flight by Audrey Powers, a Blue Origin vice president; Chris Boshuizen, who co-founded the Earth-imaging satellite company Planet; and Glen de Vries, an executive with the French healthcare software corporation Dassault Systèmes.

When the capsule touched down in the Texas desert, it was quickly surrounded by ground teams. Mr. Bezos himself opened the hatch to check that everyone inside was OK. After the immediate celebrations with family and friends, the crew lined up to receive their Blue Origin astronaut pins.

“What you have given me is the most profound experience. I’m so filled with emotion about what just happened,” Mr. Shatner said through tears.

 

Blue Origin photo

 

Jews who have ‘boldly gone’ into space

  • Boris Volynov: aboard Soyuz 5 in 1969, one of the original Russian cosmonauts
  • Judith Resnik: first Jewish American person and second American woman, 1984 aboard Space Shuttle Discovery, tragically killed aboard her second flight on the Challenger in 1986 when the shuttle combusted seconds after takeoff.
  • Jeffrey A. Hoffman: during his mission on Discovery in 1985, first American astronaut to make a contingency spacewalk, when he tried to repair a satellite. In December 1993, he celebrated Hanukkah on board the Endeavor with a dreidel and a small traveling menorah he had brought with him.
  • Ellen S. Baker: her first mission in 1989, her team deployed the Galileo probe to study Jupiter. On her last mission in 1995, the Atlantis became the first American space shuttle to dock at Mir, the Russian station.
  • David Wolf: participated in 4 space flights, including a 128-day mission to Mir. He carried with him a mezuzah, a yad, a small menorah and a dreidel, which sparked a debate with Jeffrey Hoffman about whose dreidel spun the longest. Wolf said his went for 1-1/2 hours, until it got sucked into an air intake.
  • Mark L. Polansky: participated in three space missions. On his second mission in 2006, he took a replica of an artifact from the U.S. Holocaust Museum that had been donated by a survivor, and later donated it back to the museum.
  • Ilan Ramon: the only Israeli astronaut, died tragically in 2003 with six other crew members when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry into the atmosphere.
  • Jessica Meir: spent 200 days in space in 2019 as part of Expedition 61/62. She took with her an Israeli flag, a postcard from Yad Vashem, and a pair of novelty Hanukkah socks.
  • Jared Isaacman: commander of SpaceX’s Inspiration4, the first space flight comprised of private citizens to orbit Earth.