Blue Origin NS-18 was a

sub-orbital spaceflight A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the surface of the primary (astronomy), gravitating body from which it was launched. Hence, it will not complete one orbital ...

mission operated by

Blue Origin Blue Origin Enterprises, L.P. is an American space technology company headquartered in Kent, Washington. The company operates the suborbital New Shepard rocket and the heavy-lift New Glenn rocket. In addition to producing engines for its own ...

that launched on 13 October 2021. The mission was the eighteenth flight of the company's

New Shepard New Shepard is a Reusable launch vehicle, fully reusable Sub-orbital spaceflight, sub-orbital launch vehicle developed for space tourism by Blue Origin. The vehicle is named after Alan Shepard, who became the List of space travelers by nationali ...

integrated

launch vehicle A launch vehicle is typically a rocket-powered vehicle designed to carry a payload (a crewed spacecraft or satellites) from Earth's surface or lower atmosphere to outer space. The most common form is the ballistic missile-shaped multistage ...

and spacecraft. It was the second New Shepard launch to carry passengers. The flight, carrying four people including actor

William Shatner William Shatner (born March 22, 1931) is a Canadian actor. In a career spanning seven decades, he is best known for his portrayal of James T. Kirk in the ''Star Trek'' franchise, from his 1966 debut as the captain of the starship USS Enterpri ...

, launched from Blue Origin's sub-orbital launch site in

West Texas West Texas is a loosely defined region in the U.S. state of Texas, generally encompassing the desert climate, arid and semiarid climate, semiarid lands west of a line drawn between the cities of Wichita Falls, Texas, Wichita Falls, Abilene, Texa ...

aboard the fourth flight of New Shepard booster NS4 and the spacecraft RSS ''First Step'', both having previously flown on NS-14, NS-15, and NS-16 earlier in the year. At 90, Shatner became the oldest person to fly into space, surpassing the record of 82 which had been held by

Wally Funk Mary Wallace Funk (born February 1, 1939) is an American aviator, commercial astronaut, and goodwill ambassador. She was the first female air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, the first female civilian flight ...

for three months since her flight on Blue Origin NS-16. Per Blue Origin, Shatner was a guest of the company on the flight and did not have to pay for the trip. When Ed Dwight flew as a space tourist on the Blue Origin suborbital flight on 19 May 2024 at age , he became the oldest person to reach space, overtaking Shatner. While in space, Shatner experienced the

overview effect The overview effect is a cognitive shift reported by some astronauts while viewing the Earth from outer space, space. Researchers have characterized the effect as "a state of awe with self-transcendence, self-transcendent qualities, precipitated b ...

and articulated it live on camera in a post-flight conversation with Blue Origin founder

Jeff Bezos Jeffrey Preston Bezos ( ;; and Robinson (2010), p. 7. ; born January 12, 1964) is an American businessman best known as the founder, executive chairman, and former president and CEO of Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce and clou ...

Passengers

The four passengers aboard included Blue Origin's vice president of mission and flight operations Audrey Powers, former NASA engineer and third Australian-born person in space Chris Boshuizen, vice chair for

life sciences This list of life sciences comprises the branches of science that involve the scientific study of life – such as microorganisms, plants, and animals including human beings. This science is one of the two major branches of natural science, ...

and healthcare at the French software company

Dassault Systèmes Dassault Systèmes SE () (abbreviated 3DS) is a French Multinational corporation, multinational software corporation which develops software for 3D product design, simulation, manufacturing and other 3D related products. Founded in 1981, it is ...

Glen de Vries, and Canadian actor

Songs for Space

Chris Boshuizen, who is also a musician, carried a ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the Star Trek: The Original Series, series of the same name and became a worldwide Popular culture, pop-culture Cultural influence of ...

''-themed USB drive which contained 400 songs submitted to him via a

Reddit Reddit ( ) is an American Proprietary software, proprietary social news news aggregator, aggregation and Internet forum, forum Social media, social media platform. Registered users (commonly referred to as "redditors") submit content to the ...

thread along with him on the trip. The USB drive was later auctioned off for charity supporting Musack, raising US$8,448. A

SoundCloud SoundCloud is a German audio streaming service owned and operated by SoundCloud Global Limited & Co. KG. The service enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is ...

playlist of all of the songs contained on the drive was created for posterity.

References

External links

* * {{William Shatner Suborbital space tourism flights 2021 in spaceflight Test spaceflights Aviation history of the United States Suborbital human spaceflights 2021 in Texas 2021 in aviation William Shatner New Shepard missions