Captain Kirk is Headed to Space—For Real!

Captain Kirk has spent a lot of time exploring the darker corners of space, but William Shatner the actor who famously played him on Star Trek has not. The film, television, and music star who spent so much of his career pretending to fly through the stars has been unable to reach that final frontier in real life. That is all about to change, though. On October 12, Shatner is going to boldly go to space aboard Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin spacecraft.

The 90-year-old acting veteran will not only get the honor of brining his famed TV character to space but will also be the oldest person to ever make the trip to the stars. Not that he wants that particular honor. "I don't want to be known as the oldest guy who went into space!" Shatner joked with a crowd at New York City's Comic Con, Cheddar reported. "I'm bloody Captain Kirk!"

The actor turned soon-to-be-astronaut admitted that he is a little nervous about making the trip. His nerves weren't particularly soothed during his visit to the Blue Origin facility outside of Van Horn, Texas, when the rocket scientists apparently used the phrase "our best guess" more than he liked. It was something he addressed with the crowd at the comic fan convention. "And I'm thinking I'm going up in a rocket and 'our best guess' is it should be fine," he said, laughing. "So there's a little niggling fire of terror. I'm terrified."

While he may be scared (and who wouldn't be?) Shatner is excited to make the trip. "I want to press my nose up against the plastic window," he told CNN's Anderson Cooper. "What I don't want to see is somebody else out there looking back at me."

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We wish Mr. Shatner well on his new adventure to the great unknown. In the immortal words of Spock, "live long and prosper."