Woo-hoo!
I am not even a fan or supporter of sending humans into space,
and less so of any billionaire-sponsored joy ride
on a dildo-shaped space ship.

And I've never been a trekkie (sure, I watched and liked the first 4 Star Trek movies)
nor has sci-fi ever had any impact on my life.

Nevertheless, William Shatner's heart-felt joy immediately
upon landing after his 11-minute ride on Blue Origin, did move me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shatner

Shatner has gone where no Canadian nonagenarian has gone before!

They should have left him there.

Star Trek -- the original series -- is the ONLY sci-fi I ever was devoted to. It must be a childhood thing! Spock was my favorite. He was so calm, so logical...and with those ears, he was downright handsome!

Half of me was happy to see the man who played Captain Kirk enjoy actual space, for I have affection for the entire cast of the show.

But the other half of me still thinks that space travel is better left to those who can actually manage spacecraft, not just issue pre-written orders from a studio-built command chair -- or at actual huge corporations -- and anyway, there are much better uses for all this extra money, and even space travel itself, than giving rich people frivolous joyrides.

But I'm still glad that Bill Shatner enjoyed it. Really. He IS Kirk.

Nessie

Star Trek with all the flaws of the creator, actors etc. is still an incredibly positive force in this world. I can't think of any other TV show or movie that has influenced as many in such positive ways. So much so that Deforest Kelley, and James Doohan were awarded honorary doctorates in the respective fields of medicine and engineering.

If Bezos or Musk blow up in space, I'll be the first to point and let out a hearty Nelson Muntz "ha ha".

But of all the people they could take up on these trips, anyone from Star Trek I feel deserves a ride.

But that's me.

Fascinating

Shatner, is 90 years old. I've seen multiple interviews post flight and keep thinking, I'll have whatever he is having.
Plus, Bezos invited Captain Kirk because too many people were Rooting for Disaster.

Hey, if Shatner is going to die, it may as well be in an exploding spacecraft!

Small price to pay for Amazon employees to finally be able to unionize and get some fucking benefits.

Hell, maybe even he'll do it as a public service!

https://youtu.be/IlMFI8Zz7C0?t=60

It would be a better ending than Kirk got in Star Trek Generations...

INFINITELY!!!

Oh my....

I see what you did there!

The Enterprise self-destructing in pieces, then finally blowing up entirely, but then still 70% of the ship remaining and crash landing on a planet so we can have Star Trek IV always annoyed the out of me.

How do you really feel!? Honestly Star Trek IV wasn't that bad. Certainly not as bad as the Gospel according to Vulcan Jesus aka Star Trek V: God is a dick

I was always annoyed at how quickly, Leonard McCoy, a renowned physician, man of science and all around cynic and sceptic, was to accept some random head as god.
Dammit, Bones, you're a doctor, not a moron!

Well it was good we got Star Trek IV - anyhow, "continuity issues" about how much of the Enterprise may or may not have made it as far as the credits in III aside, they had the joyride in a Klingon ship in IV.

Star Trek wasn't Mozart. It was a wonderful fantasy based as much as Hollywood can permit on science and the future. One of the few consistencies in the entire run from the original series to Chris Pine acting like Shatner being Kirk was the standard set as Captain by this 90 year old space traveler. As a fan and a lifetime space flight geek I was thrilled to see this take place. Short of the entire bridge crew of Star Trek TOS being on board, it was about as cool as it gets. A man of his eventful life and 90 years had a lot of emotion in relatively few words after landing and I wish Mr. Bezos had shut up and let him continue. It was a great way to illustrate the wisdom and experience of age as well as being able to express yourself verbally.

Now technically all they did was a ballistic up and down flight that barely penetrated the edge of "space". (No phallic insinuation intended) Not long after, four astro-rookies spent three days in orbit with Spacex. You will see a lot more like them in the near future. Getting off this rock permanently is the only hope of long term human survival and doing it will require a lot of Star Trek qualities. Shatner, both as Kirk and himself, set a standard for regular non-astronaut earth people to follow.

The human adventure is just beginning. Let's boldly go.

Interesting observation. What is genius to you?

Well I think we can agree that regardless of Mr. Mozart's standing among the high IQ's of history, his work is generally regarded as higher entertainment. I mean, stealing Spock's brain was a bad episode but it beats crap out of most "reality" programming. It's all relative.

DuncanEdwards said:
"Brain! Brain! What is brain?!?!"

Nessie

Alright, look, Spock's Brain is arguably the worst episode of TOS, and Code of Honor is the worst episode of TNG. With special mention of Sub Rosa, which is the one where Doctor Crusher gets her queef chapel stretched out by a ghost in a lantern.
I dunno where I was going with this when I started, but Lower Decks was so much better than Picard and Discovery.

The Original Series

Star Trek: Terms of Service

Also, holy SHIT Lower Decks is great!!!