When William Shatner Went To House, All He Noticed Was ‘Dying’

William Shatner is just not now — and by no means was — a spaceship captain, however he performed one on TV. In 2021, William Shatner lastly went to area aboard a gratuitously phallic spacecraft owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos. Don’t learn into that an excessive amount of. However as a substitute of feeling triumph or the undaunted spirit of James T. Kirk, Shatner felt dread and says he noticed solely “dying,” as CNN experiences.

As an alternative of awe, outer area crammed Shatner with despair for what we’ve completed to the Earth. It’s ironic that the 91-year previous actor who sat within the captain’s chair of the USS Enterprise on the present Star Trek within the ’60s (and, later, reprised his function on Futurama) felt unsettling despair and dread upon going to area in actual life, after having boldly gone into the unknown for many years.

Shatner explains why area was such a dismal muse in his current biography, Boldly Go, however he additionally says he noticed nothing however dying on the market due to the angle area gave him. Throughout an interview with CNN, Shatner mentioned:

After I obtained as much as area, I needed to get to the window to see what it was that was on the market. I seemed on the blackness of area. There have been no dazzling lights. It was simply palpable blackness. I believed I noticed dying.

After which I seemed again on the Earth. Given my background and having learn a variety of issues concerning the evolution of Earth over 5 billion years and the way all the great thing about nature has developed, I thought of how we’re killing all the pieces.

I felt this overwhelming disappointment for the Earth.

I didn’t understand it till I obtained down. After I stepped out of the spacecraft, I began crying. I didn’t know why. It took me hours to grasp why I used to be weeping. I spotted I used to be in grief for the Earth.

The notorious actor isn’t incorrect to weep for the waste we’ve wrought on Earth, which is so typically blamed on particular person individuals fairly than profitable industries — whether or not it’s large ag, power, or the automotive business.

I’ve a principle about Shatner seeing solely dying in area that includes being greeted at touchdown by one of many world’s richest individuals, whose staff must hold working throughout pure disasters, however Shatner pokes holes in my principle by mentioning billionaires like Jeff Bezos who need to broaden to area, per CNN:

The entire concept right here is to get individuals accustomed to going to area, as if it’s like going to the Riviera. It’s not solely a conceit – it’s a enterprise.

However what Jeff Bezos needs to do and what’s slowly accruing due to our familiarity with area is get these polluting industries up into orbit and get the earth again to what it was. (Editor’s observe: Bezos has routinely talked about transferring heavy industries into orbit to assist protect the Earth, and that concept additionally has its skeptics and critics.)

That rationalization got here proper earlier than Ol’ Invoice went off on a tangent about mining the Moon earlier than we get to the planet Mars, in a veiled point out of Elon Musk.

Nicely, William, sorry to say, however the dying you noticed on Earth will most likely attain Mars, too. If Shatner needs to increase that feeling of despair to the Pink Planet, then Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles is prime studying materials. The purpose being that until we instantly change into a society modeled after the (good) one in Nausicaä, dying and decay will seemingly comply with us into area, the ultimate frontier.