‘Beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here’: William Shatner likens his space trip to a ‘funeral’

Hollywood star William Shatner felt a sense of “grief” when he went up to space.

The actor, who is known for his starring role as Captain Kirk in the Star Trek franchise, became the oldest person ever to reach space when he blasted off on Jeff Bezos’s New Shepard NS-18 rocket in October 2021 but has revealed that the experience wasn’t as “beautiful” as he thought it was going to be.

He said, “I had thought that going into space would be the ultimate catharsis of that connection I had been looking for between all living things—that being up there would be the next beautiful step to understanding the harmony of the universe.

“I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound. It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness,” the 91-year-old said. —IANS