Noted Fictional Spaceman William Shatner Has Officially Gone To Space For Real

After a series of delays and growing concerns about his age, William Shatner has officially gone where no TV actor has gone before: outer space. The iconic actor, best known as Star Trek‘s Captain Kirk, left the Earth on Wednesday morning aboard the second launch of Jeff Bezo’s Blue Origin capsule. Minutes later, Shatner was back on solid ground where he was visibly emotional from the once-in-a-lifetime experience.

After emerging from the capsule with his fellow astronauts, Shatner was greeted by Bezos, who stood by as the actor pontificated on the space flight.

“I’m so filled with emotion about what just happened. It’s extraordinary, extraordinary. I hope I can maintain what I feel now. I don’t want to lose it. It’s so much larger than me and life,” Shatner told Bezos via CNN. “What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine. It hasn’t got anything to do with the little green men and the blue orb. It has to do with the enormity and the quickness and the suddenness of life and death.”

Clearly moved by seeing the vastness of space, Shatner continued to expound on the experience to Bezos, who wanted to hear every word of it as the crew celebrated around them.

“You look down, there’s the blue down there and the black up there … there is Mother Earth and comfort, and there is, is there death? I don’t know, but is that death? Is that the way death is?” Shatner said. “It was so moving; this experience, it was something unbelievable.”

(Via CNN)