Watch: William Shatner Goes Into Space On Blue Origin Flight

court here we go this is an nbc news special report here's savannah guthrie hi everybody good morning and in just a few moments we will witness a historic event in this new era of commercial space travel let's go to van horn texas where william shatner captain kirk himself is among those boldly going where few have gone before he is headed to space he's the board of rocket owned by jeff bezos's company blue origin the 90 year old actor will make history as the oldest person to ever fly in space we're about three and a half minutes from launch right now he is part of a four-person crew that loaded into the capsule just a few moments ago ready to blast off from this launch site in west texas in just a few minutes we're about 30 seconds there's been some holds this morning so they're a bit delayed about 45 minutes delayed but we're about to watch it happen and i want to bring in tom costello who covers space and aviation for us and tom give us a sense of what these astronauts can expect today well they within two minutes of launch so two to three minutes once they're off the actually off the tower they're actually going to have a separation from the rocket the capsule will be separated from the booster rocket the spaceship will continue on towards its apogee hitting a height of about 62 miles up over that karman line the delineation uh internationally recognized for space and that's when they will get that three to four minutes of weightlessness and that's about it right three to four minutes of weightlessness before the capsule starts coming back down again descending under parachutes back down to earth so the total trip here is 11 minutes it's very similar to what they did in july on the first mission but this one has captain kirk and that's why we're here 90 years old and he tells me he's nervous about this i said wait a minute you battled romulans and klingons and he said yeah but this is real life and he is nervous but he's excited tom we are an irl in real life and this is about to happen we're just a few moments from launch that's the launch pad now this is a capsule and we're starting to see some movement here that will be released from a booster rocket the booster rocket will then land back to earth while the capsule as you mentioned is catapulted past the carmen line remember that that is the internationally recognized place where space begins and they will feel that zero gravity and what a ride down as well because then they're going to feel five times the the the feel of gravity yeah that's right and the entire trip i mean i think we should underscore comes right back down here to the same place where they lift off from there's a landing zone not far away just as that spaceship is hitting the ground retro rockets fire to give it a very gentle settling down into the desert sand here in west texas they have been practicing dozens of times over and over and over again getting in and out of those seats so they don't get stuck unable to get back in their seats when they descend again but what's so critical is enjoying those three to four minutes of weightlessness that they're promised we're about a minute away from lunch now t-minus one minute i've always wanted to say that tom but just so people are clear the astronauts aboard this mission are not flying this aircraft it's remote controlled in essence all control from the ground and on board you don't have any professional astronauts at all they won't be astronauts until they go into space in just a few minutes we've got 30 seconds to go here i want to bring in mike massimino who is the former nasa astronaut locked many hours in space just what these folks might be feeling in this moment as they're probably starting to feel a little rumble beneath that mic uh hi savannah thanks for having me uh yeah i think there's a lot of anticipation probably thinking about things like how they got there each one took a different path to to get there remembering those things and realizing that they ended up on that rocket ready to go let's listen in and watch this launch blue origin headed [Music] with the second human space flight crew [Music] what a launch we are on our way the first milestone here on his flight to space [Music] tom we expect this trajectory the booster and the capsule to last about three minutes or so at the base of the screen as well yeah actually at two minutes they have separation between the booster and the capsule confirmed max q this is when the mat the the aerodynamic stresses on the vehicle were at their maximum let's make the point if we can savannah we are listening to the voice of blue origin mission control this is not nasa this is a private company's voice of mission control we are very much dependent on their voice and their knowledge as to what's going on [Music] and the folks aboard that capsule have been prepped for all the bumps all the feelings all of the noises that they may be experiencing right now that was part of their safety training right tom thank you again everybody for joining us live shepard's second human flight with audrey again you're listening to the customer the voice of blue origin there on board they are well on their way to space so far a nominal flight a clean burn on our blue engine 3 new shepard giving them a beautiful flight to space this morning [Music] nominal of course is nasa terminology meaning it's all going great absolutely right so they have been practicing this dozens of times for the last few days over and over and over again and listen you know at the age of 90 it's not necessarily easy to get in and out of that seat that's what shatner has been working on now we've had main engine cut off the be3 engine has shut off and in just a moment we're going to separate the capsule from the booster and at that point our astronauts will have the opportunity to get out of their harnesses and enjoy the beauties of zero g let's wait to listen [Music] oh [Music] and there you can see a clean separation between the capsule and the booster that's a beautiful shot now savannah we are going to be very much just dependent on listening to open microphones inside the spaceship and there you can see that you can hear that enjoying the booster zero g tom do you want to continue any signal from you'll know when the capsule speed hits zero i'm sorry i'm sorry savannah did not catch your question my apologies what did you say you talked about the open mics we might hear some from inside the capsule would you expect to see any images or is that something we'll see later our crew capsule if it's if we follow the same script as in july they provide most of those images after they're back down on earth so um i think what we can bank on hopefully are is the live audio feed of them enjoying zero g and then once they are back down on earth we should see those images released now the capsule is going about 64. very short i was going to say when you're riding a fast rocket you get there quick at about 350 yeah exactly i mean literally it's an 11-minute trip right so they're they are uh almost halfway through the trip already jackie they are having the time of their lives so we're getting the narration from the blue origin uh official telling us what she must be seeing or hearing in terms of the crew now experiencing zero g that kind of iconic moment that so many people dream of um and they'll get to experience that for about three minutes and in the meantime tom that it's fascinating and such a feat of technology that booster rocker that carried them to this place will be landing almost a pinpoint landing so it can be reused again it's exactly the the same technology in in some way the same idea that spacex uses elon musk uses to make spacex become a viable uh you know alternative to essentially losing thank you booster rockets as soon as you use them so it will come right back down and land right back down here on earth you know we should also make the point savannah that this is now the 18th mission the 18th mission for not wait to hear his comments alan shepard the the new shepherd i should say the new shepherd rocket named after alan shepard from australia the last one had humans on it this one has humans on it all the others were test flights as well as blends of breeze and our very own audrey powers let's bring in joan higginbotham also an astronaut who has spent hundreds of hours in space and joan you were one of the few that could describe how they might be feeling right now experiencing zero gravity for the first time thank you savannah for everything i just want to say hi to mike massimino my classmate so if you're up there experiencing zero g they're they're probably i would best say they're like a kid in a candy store it's uh the first time you get to experience it is is a real treat um you have no no choice but to float up to the top of the cabin wherever you are and it's just a thrill to be able to do things in a microwave microgravity environment that you never get to do in your everyday life and mike bring you in here you can say hi back to your colleague joan but also what is the view like up there this is a sub-orbital trip to space so they're not in space orbit what might they be seeing out that window well first hi johnny great to see you um yeah they're seeing some things you can kind of get an idea by the shots we're saying one cool thing is the sky goes dark on you even though it's you know the sun's out when you get above the atmosphere you look at the stars and around you and you see a black sky but looking back down on the earth yeah they're not really that high relative to where the space station is for example they're 60 miles up as tom explained you can see some detail but you also can see i think from where they are so you know the horizon uh the the beauty of the earth you don't see the borders so you're seeing things with a much different perspective than anything you can get on earth or even in an airplane so it's a it's really an awe-inspiring moment when you unstrap float to the window and this spaceship was meant for viewing the earth with big windows and looking down at our home it really can be a life-changing experience i think it will be for each of them and meanwhile back here on earth tom correct me if i'm wrong we just witnessed the return to earth of that booster capsule about two miles from where it embarked a few minutes ago they nailed the landing right on the money we had a sonic boom here on the ground and this is just amazing technology that they're able to bring that rocket booster right back down and uh and nail it right here in the west texas desert so that is what's making this economical for companies like blue origin like spacex to uh be taking people into earth back to i'm sorry into space and back to earth and i'm watching now the feed of the space capsule now descending as well there's a little bit of a lag time before it hits uh the the air but we are seeing now the space capsule underneath parachutes it too is now starting to descend down to earth so all of this appears to have gone absolutely perfectly so far as the feed will very quickly now switch over to the spaceship so here's the capsule our astronauts are aboard we can call them astronauts now because they've been to space and this is they describe it as a high speed plunge back to earth at least before the parachutes are deployed and your body has to be able to withstand 5g five times the force of gravity uh we'll turn to our astronauts for this mike massimino i'll start with you what does that feel like i mean that's got to be pretty tough on the body some people can get that tunnel vision some people pass out uh what would you expect well i think they'll be fine the way that the spacecraft is is designed they have these seats you're recovering you're laying down so whatever any g-forces you take you're going to take those in the chest but that's why it's really important to be strapped back in into the seat and we talked about getting out and getting back in you want to be back in your seat and lying down in that seat to protect you from those ds it'll be a little uncomfortable i felt like we took up the three g's on launch for example i felt like there's three times your body weight i feel like there were three big dudes sitting on me that's what it kind of felt like and then and then it subsides but it's interesting because they've been weightless for a little bit and so whatever g's they take on the way down it's going to even be amplified because after you float for a little bit and you get used to zero gravity even a little bit of g feels like a lot you see they're about i would say about 90 seconds or so from making that landing joan what do you imagine is going through their minds right now i mean that was a very quick trip it was an extremely trip quick a quick trip but i still know that they enamored and what they got to do and they're still feeling that high from being able to look at our beautiful world from a different vantage point so even though they're going to be taking on a whole bunch of g's right now their mind is still on what they have just experienced tom what do we expect as we watch these final moments of their big mission to space uh what's the protocol after they've just touched down there we see that cloud of dust so i think they're close to touchdown if they haven't already the newest astronaut well you know you know what the headline is going to be around the world uh captain kirk and chris goes to space and comes back and lands safely so this is a great day for him a great personal triumph for him and let's be candid it's a big and a great day for blue origin as well now they will be on the ground for about 22 minutes before they will pull them or or help them get out of the capsule they need to make sure that that the entire vehicle is off gassed if you will you get rid of all the potentially dangerous fumes and gasses but this just has gone perfectly and there was a quote by the way on twitter from william shatner and he says the following i'm going to quote william shatner's tweet quote i do not know what i may appear to the world but to myself i seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me so i think he's trying to wax poetic i suspect he actually composed that in that tweet before he went up and then he hit the send button but i think so william shatner is already tweeting i'm being told and uh i i confess to not knowing this off the top of my head that it's a quote of sir isaac newton which of course is poetic uh in its own right but um yes it was a pre-programmed tweet that got sent so we'll have to get the off-the-cuff response from william shatner and his fa the fellow passengers one of them is a blue origin uh employee and then the other two are paying customers and tom this isn't a cheap ticket it's a quick one but it's not a cheap ticket quarter million dollars uh we believe is how much that the two uh paying passengers paid for this and both of them are successful business uh entrepreneurs who can afford it uh william shatner was invited to go along i got to tell you i think they're paying him in all honesty because he's also been asked to do so much media you've got to compensate the guy for his time but so all of this is part of blue origin's big public relations push to get the message out about uh you know putting people in space and the commercialization of space the space tourism business uh and you know savannah i'm sure i'm not sure that you and i would be doing this coverage live on network television if it weren't for the fact that captain kirk is on board right now well they're good at space travel and they're good at pr too they know how to get attention and sending the original captain kirk to the place where no man has boldly gone before a few have is is a good pr move no question about it actually you raise a good discussion point and we're probably about 10 minutes or so before we see these astronauts disembark from this capsule and perhaps hear from them or at least get to read the looks on their faces but mike massimino i'll ask you what to you is the value of a flight like this and this new era of commercial space travel well savannah i think what it what it does is it opens up the opportunities to fly in space not only for the people we see but also for researchers experiments my students i teach at columbia two years ago they one of those flights that we they mentioned previously before they put people on board they flew an experiment into space at low cost so it opens it up for research for for people who want to go to experience space flight as tourists or observers as we see today and it's not just for anybody every uh just a select few now it can be for more and more people granted you need uh some cash to go right now but i think that that price is going to go down and the the automation involved it doesn't take very much training a couple days emergency procedures that's all it takes it's it's minimal training uh you don't have to dedicate your career like joan and i did to get the chance to fly in space so it's going to allow more people to go and hopefully that price keeps coming down reusability that we saw that that rocket ship landing a very close by to where it took off from you can turn it around fairly quickly and so hopefully that price will continue to come down and more and more people will get to experience this and it will help i think not just in research and projects that people want to do but also in just a global perspective the fragility and the beauty of our planet really sinks in when you get to see it from space yeah i was just going to raise that with joan higginbotham because when you talk to people such as yourselves who have been there and and seen the earth from that very rare vantage point people do say it changes you even if it is just for a fleeting few moments that that that perspective really has an impact did you find that to be the case joan i absolutely did i actually did a ted talk in bermuda over um about two years ago about my experience in space and how as i came back to earth i had a better perspective and appreciation like math said to the fragility of the earth and its beauty and the fact that we really need to be very careful how we treat her because we only have one and then it just gave me a better appreciation for humanity and my my overall goal what the promise i made was that to be kinder and gentler to humanity because we're all in this world together what we do affects uh the next person uh and so i want to be a person who brings good uh and change for the my my fellow human well this certainly is helping others to have that perspective as well um and as i turn to you tom costello we had just seen the booster rocket reposition itself and come back down to earth and one of the extraordinary features of the blue origin vehicle is that it is reusable and blue origin has much larger ambitions than just a joyride although let's keep it look keep an eye on this shot actually because it looks like they might be about to knock on the door and say hello i don't know it's more exciting literally they're literally trying to get a thumbs up from every one of the astronauts inside to make sure that all of them are okay that's what she's doing uh looking at each one of them through the windows making sure that they're okay and then now they're securing uh the capsule you know we had roughly 70 mile per hour winds here yesterday so that's why they didn't do this as planned yesterday they're doing it now instead and it's a beautiful day here and no winds whatsoever and so now we'll see this how they're able to disembark and the wires are quoting shatner saying that was unlike anything they've described so i i think we'll hear more from him and from all of those who've had the experience of a lifetime as they take these few minutes to open the doors and we'll see what our our first few uh seconds with them are would you expect with that brief time in space mike that they'd have you know that the sea they wouldn't have their sea legs that they might feel a little jiggly or woozy or dizzy well it's a pretty short time that they were up there i think when we saw the other crew they were able to uh you know stand up and get up and walk out and wave and and move around so i think that they'll probably be just fine but just in case i would suggest to them and they'll probably be doing this just taking a little bit slow make sure they get up and feeling good before they move around too quickly but with just a few minutes of weightlessness their adaptation coming back should not be a big deal tom we were just starting to talk about it but i know we're keeping our eye on this capsule because we want to see those first images but blue origin does have much larger ambitions tell us about that the capsule and who was going to be checking on it uh listen right now blue origin and as you know owned by jeff bezos uh they have much bigger ambitions they want to go to the moon they are in a fight back and forth with elon musk and spacex over getting to the moon and setting up a moon base and providing the infrastructure and the rockets to get there nasa though has awarded spacex the lunar contracts not uh jeff bezos and not of course blue origin and that has been a big bone of contention uh bezos you know even threatening legal action against nasa uh and then you had for example elon musk telling bezos you can't get to the moon by suing your way there real competition between jeff bezos and elon musk but at the moment at the moment elon musk and spacex have the nasa contract to try to go to the moon uh to create and build on the moon base to provide the rockets to get their spacex at the moment apartment blue origin at the moment does not i wouldn't give up on that though the infrastructure they have built here in the desert i'll just tell you savannah this is not fly by night they have built a tremendous infrastructure they are planning to go long and deep and for the long term i don't know if you were able to keep your eye on the images as you were talking with us tom but it looked like jeff bezos kind of knocking through the windows i don't know is it is that who you think that was it certainly looked like it to me but it was hard to make out i i didn't get a clear view on my screen but uh that would make sense i know that he is doing everything he can to be there and uh be a part of this he even threat he even told me last night he was tempted to stow away and be and take one of the extra seats that was not taken but clearly he decided to stay on the ground oh when they received letters from the previous passengers astronauts on the first blue origin flight and they were said oh you're so lucky we wish we could go back again so i guess it's a little bit like a roller coaster that you wish you could go right back on and ride again the minute you land i think you're absolutely right everybody who's done this has the same experience whether you're on one of these types of quick trips as a tourist or you're an astronaut who goes to the station how many times have you heard nasa astronauts say they spend three four five months up there and they can't go wait to go back it's such a different experience a life fulfilling experience but it is astonishing how three to four minutes of weightlessness will completely change your viewpoint and i'm now looking at and you're gonna see it in a second here bezos it appears is opening the hatch let's keep our eyes again thank you everybody for joining us live from west texas at our launch site one our second human space flight crew has gone to space and back up over the carmen line just over 351 thousand feet we're awaiting jeff bezos who is now opening the hatch yes [Applause] all of them appear healthy all of them seem to be able to exit on their own power he said hello astronauts as he poked his head through the hatch door [Applause] there's audrey powers a big hug from her audrey powers the sister president of mission and flight operations at blue origin the only blue origin employee and there it is our customer chris boss housing the first full australian citizen to go to space and back and glenn devries [Applause] i don't know if you could hear that savannah well i'll tell you he was really nervous about this he said it on our air he said it in conversations with me he was nervous about this trip he said i really want to come back down let's listen see if we can catch some of this [Laughter] i want to hear them [Applause] [Laughter] the champagne showers have become smiles all around william shatner taking in the moment clearly everybody [Applause] the little things and you're looking into blackness into black ugliness and you look down there's the blue [Laughter] is there death i don't know what's that death is that the way death is weapon it's gone jesus it was so moving to me this experience has been something unbelievable you see yeah you know the weightless my stomach went up this is so weird but not as weird as the covering of blue this is what i never expected oh it's one thing to say oh the sky and the thing and the fragile it's all true but what isn't true what is unknown until you do it is there's this pillow there's this soft blue look at the beauty of that color and it's so thin and you're through it in an instant it's one of them how thick is it is it a mild but you're going 2 000 miles an hour so you're through 50 miles of whatever the mathematics cost yeah you know it's like a beat and a beat and suddenly you threw the blue and you're into black and you're into you know it's rods mysterious and galaxies and things but what you see is black and what you see down there is light and that's the difference and not to have this you have done something i mean whatever those other guys are doing what it what isn't they don't i don't know about that what you have given me is the most profound experience i'm so filled with emotion about what just happened i i just it's extraordinary extraordinary i hope i never recover from this i hope that i can uh maintain what i feel now i i don't want to lose it it's so so much larger than the me of life and it hasn't got anything to do with the little green planet or asking you to do that it has to do with the enormity and the quickness and the suddenness [Music] it's so beautiful beautiful yes beautiful in its way but no i mean your words oh my words that's just amazing i don't know i can't even begin to express what i what i would love to do is to communicate as much as possible the jeopardy the the the the moment you see how the vulnerability of everything it's so small this air which is keeping us alive is is thinner than your skin it's it's a it's a it's a sliver it's it's immeasurably small when you think in terms of the universe it's it's not it's negligible this air mars doesn't have it right there nothing i mean this way and when you think about carbon dioxide change to oxygen what is it 20 and suddenly that level that sustains our life it's so thin to to to dirty it i mean that's another one and you shoot through what you're saying about shooting through it so fast so quickly 50 miles and you're just in blackness you're in death the moment this is life this is life and that's that and it's in an instant you go wow that's death that's what i saw that's amazing that's amazing i am i am overwhelmed i have no idea you know we were talking earlier before going well you know it's going to be different yeah it's going to and whatever that phrase is you have that you have a different view of things it doesn't begin to explain to to to describe what and this is now the commercial everybody it would be so important for everybody to have that experience through one means or another i mean maybe you could put it on 3d and wear the goggles to have that experience i mean that's that certainly is a technical possibility but what you need also okay we're lying there yeah and i'm thinking there's a one delay after another delay we're lying there like how do i feel and i'm thinking yeah the little jittery here and they move the page oh there's something in the engine except have an anomaly in the engine we're going to hold a little longer or you're going to hold a little longer and i feel this you know the stomach the the the biome inside and i'm thinking okay i'm i'm thinking i'm a little nervous here another delay i'm a little more nervous and then the thing starts i made it by the way the simulation [Applause] they have to be worn it's only the simulation everything else is much more it doesn't capture doesn't capture the the and besides which the jeopardy bang this thing hits you william shatner with blue origin founder of jeff bezos he was feeling all the feelings and talking about philosophy and his feeling of how profound that experience was he said i hope i never recover to jeff bezos as i bring in um tom costello and that that feeling that every astronaut has described apparently shatner's feels in spades i'd say he was a little starstruck yeah i gotta tell you i had a conversation with him last night and i was struck by how how much he how much emotion he already felt going into this and how profoundly and deeply he feels about trying to save the planet and he was getting emotional in the conversation with me last night and now to see this emotion it's really quite something it's really quite impressive 90 years old and one of the first things he said is to jeff bezos everyone should have this experience well we'll continue to watch this you can find more on nbcnews.com and msnbc full wrap-up tonight on nightly news most of you returned to today i'm savannah guthrie in new york [Music] you

2021-10-16 19:49

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