It’s been about a year since William Shatner went into space, becoming one of the first to tap into the new space tourism industry, and in fact he’s gone where very few people have gone before. It was a fitting place for the 91-year-old actor best known for star Trek Be placed. However, unlike star Trek who viewed space travel as a romantic quest, it turns out Shatner didn’t find it that way at all.
Previously, William Shatner had really only talked about the speed involved in space travel. However, in an excerpt from the new book “Boldly Go: Reflections on a life of wonder and amazement, Posted in Variety , the actor talks about his experience aboard Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space shuttle, and it seems his journey was less full of wonder and more sad. He found that the void of space was just that, an empty void. He says the space lacked the awe and awe he expected, describing it as “death”. Shatner says …
I saw a cold, dark, black void. It was unlike any darkness you could see or feel on Earth. It was deep, enveloping, all-encompassing. I turned to the light in the fireplace. I could see the curvature of the Earth, the beige of the desert, the white of the clouds and the blue of the sky. it was life. Feed, support, life. Mother Earth. Gaia. And I left it.
It’s almost heartbreaking. Shatner was certainly thrilled to go to space, although he admits he had some nerve before the trip. Lot of star Trek Fans were also thrilled to see Captain Kirk finally go into space for real, though not everyone found William Shatner to be a suitable one. The star Trek The vet clearly had an expectation of what the trip was going to be like, that it was going to be this amazing joyful experience, but it wasn’t.
This is not to say that everything about the trip has been negative. Shatner explains that while he found space cold and lifeless, when he looked at our world, he saw it in a completely different way. He now he appreciates the earth as he never would have if he hadn’t seen it from this angle. He continues…
He had thought that going into space would be the last catharsis of that connection he sought between all living beings, that being up there would be the next beautiful step in understanding the harmony of the universe. In the movie “Contact”, when Jodie Foster’s character takes off into space and looks up at the sky, she lets out an astonished whisper: “They should have sent a poet.” I lived a different experience, because I discovered that there is no beauty, it is here, with all of us. Leaving it behind made my connection with our little planet even deeper.
Apparently, this is a known phenomenon in space travel known as the Abstract Effect. Astronauts have also reported this feeling, which makes them see the earth in a very different way. It appears that William Shatner’s space travel had a profound impact on him. Just maybe not in the way he expected.
Source: Cinemablend
