William Shatner has made a career out of outer space. But though he starred as the space-roving Captain Kirk in Star Trek, he had never actually left planet earth until last year. In 2021, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos invited the 90-year-old to voyage into space in the Blue Origin space shuttle, and Shatner became the oldest person to ever go into space.
Shatner now has a new book coming out, Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder, and in it he describes the experience of traveling into space. An excerpt of the forthcoming book has been released via Variety, and it seems like the trip was more stressful than anyone had previously let on.
According to Shatner, he was so nervous about the voyage that he almost cancelled, but didn't because he was "a professional" and felt "the show had to go on." These fears reemerged when as the shuttle was about to lift off, the pilot made an announcement about a "slight anomaly in the engine."
Apparently, however, the "anomaly wasn't too concerning, because thirty seconds later, we were cleared for launch." Shatner describes the disconcerting feeling of lifting off: "At two g’s, I tried to raise my arm, and could barely do so. At three g’s, I felt my face being pushed down into my seat."
Once the shuttle finally finished its ascent, Shatner says being in space wasn't what one would expect. "Everything I had thought was wrong," he wrote. "Everything I had expected to see was wrong."
Apparently, seeing earth from afar didn't feel great to Captain Kirk. "It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered," he said. "The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness."
According to Shatner, this isn't an uncommon feeling, and this sadness is called the "Overview Effect." "Essentially, when someone travels to space and views Earth from orbit, a sense of the planet’s fragility takes hold in an ineffable, instinctive manner," Shatner explained.
So if you're about to shell out tens of thousands of dollars to enter space, make sure you're ready for a crushing, existential sadness.
[via]
