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.

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