William Shatner,
the actor who played the iconic role of Captain Kirk on “Star Trek”, blasted
into outer space aboard a New Shepard rocket on Wednesday, the same rocket Jeff
Bezos
took to fly into space earlier this year. At the age of 90, William
Shatner is oldest person to travel to space in human history. Here’s all you
need to know about Captain Kirk’s very real trip to space.

Also Read | Captain Kirk goes to space: All you need to know about William Shatner’s space trip

According to Blue
Origin
, a company owned by Jeff Bezos, the New Shepard’s flight profile will
last approximately 11 minutes from liftoff to capsule landing. Astronauts will
experience three to four minutes of weightlessness and travel above the Karman
Line, the internationally recognised boundary of space.

Also Read | 90-year-old William Shatner set to be oldest person to blast into space

The crew members, which
include Chris Boshuizen, a co-founder of satellite company Planet Labs, and
software executive Glen de Vries, who are both paying customers, Audrey Powers,
vice president of Blue Origin’s mission and flight operations and of course
William Shatner.

The trip, however,
was not a joyride. The group had to strap themselves to a capsule that sits
atop Blue Origin’s 60-foot-tall rocket. The New Shephard rocket soared up to
about three times the speed of sound and went up 62 miles before immediately
returning to ground.

A week before launching into space, the veteran actor had told NBC News, “I am going to see the vastness of space and the extraordinary miracle of our earth and how fragile it is compared to the forces at work in the universe — that’s what I’m really looking for.”

William Shatner portrayed Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek series as well as seven feature films. 

Along with Shatner and other three members of the crew, a piece of art — paper tricorders and communicators that were crafted by Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, will also go to space. The Blue Origin founder wrote on Instagram that he had designed these tricorders when he was only nine years old.