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William Shatner’s highly anticipated trip to the edge of space will have to wait a day as high winds in West Texas prompted spaceflight company Blue Origin to postpone the trip.
Originally scheduled for Tuesday, the launch from Van Horn, Texas spaceport will now take place at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Blue Origin said in a statement Sunday.
“As part of today’s flight readiness review, the mission operations team confirmed that the vehicle meets all mission requirements and that the astronauts began their training today. “said Blue Origin. “The weather is the only trigger for the launch window.”
The National Weather Service predicted strong winds for the mountains north of Van Horn through Tuesday, and a dangerous weather forecast was in effect for the area on Sunday as gusts were expected to reach nearly 75 mph.
Shatner, 90, is said to be the oldest person to travel in space when Blue Origin’s New Shepard 4 vehicle, which features a rocket motor and capsule, reaches the limit of space.
The mission’s suborbital limit, dubbed NS-18, means the legendary “Star Trek” will boldly go only where no older person has gone before for a few minutes.
He is expected to be joined by three other passengers: Audrey Powers, Vice President of Mission and Flight Operations at Blue Origin; Glen de Vries, co-founder of the Medidata medical research platform; and Chris Boshuizen, a tech entrepreneur. The latter two have paid for their tickets, which are expected to cost more than $ 250,000 each.
Shatner said on NBC “TODAYshow last week that he was invited. Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin, tweeted that Shatner is described by the word “Legend”.
Shatner has expressed his nonchalance about his expected space flight milestone. When asked how he would prepare for the trip, he replied, “I had an apple pie last night.
He had apparently thoughtful words to describe the trip, saying “TODAY”: “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 hand. the work in the universe is really what I’m looking for. “
In July, Bezos himself made the company’s official maiden voyage to space alongside his brother and two other people. It was the first unmanned suborbital flight with a fully civilian crew.
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