Way back in 2021, William Shatner made it up there on another Jeff Bezos Blue Origin mission.
With everyone talking about that Katy Perry flight, a resurfaced quote from William Shatner in Variety explaining his somewhat miserable experience in space is going viral.
That quote was resurfaced by @silvergelpen who said, “Genuinely cannot understand why anyone celebrity or otherwise not working in an official capacity as an astronaut would want to go to ‘space’ after William Shatner spoke on his experience.”
For those who can’t read it, the quote says:
“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. In the film ‘Contact,’ when Jodie Foster’s character goes to space and looks out into the heavens, she lets out an astonished whisper, ‘They should’ve sent a poet.’ I had a different experience, because 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. Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna . . . things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.”
Yeah, that’s dark…sided.
A bunch of people in the replies are like, “Yeah, IDK why you would ever want to go to space.”
Another person called it “the best work Shatner EVER did.”
And then a bunch of other people said, “This makes me want to go to space so much more.”
Anyway, curious to see what Katy has to say about her experience!
