WEBVTT 00:00:02.040 --> 00:00:09.120 Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. 00:00:10.320 --> 00:00:12.720 StarTalk begins right now. 00:00:14.740 --> 00:00:20.180 This is StarTalk, Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. 00:00:20.420 --> 00:00:23.540 And today, we have a very special guest. 00:00:24.160 --> 00:00:26.500 Not just a special guest, a very special guest. 00:00:27.140 --> 00:00:43.480 Returning to StarTalk, we have William Shatner, the one and only, the beloved actor portrayed Captain Kirk on the Starship Enterprise in the original Star Trek series and movies that followed it some years later. 00:00:44.480 --> 00:00:53.120 And he's of special interest right now because he was on board the suborbital flight of Blue Origin's New Shepard space capsule. 00:00:53.600 --> 00:01:05.940 This is a 10-minute journey where you go across the Carmen line, that's the line where you enter space, and he was the oldest person to ever do this at age 90. 00:01:06.340 --> 00:01:07.680 Let's get straight into this. 00:01:08.820 --> 00:01:10.940 So, William Shatner, can I call you Bill? 00:01:10.960 --> 00:01:12.100 Does that work? 00:01:12.300 --> 00:01:13.420 Yes, if I can call you Neil. 00:01:13.440 --> 00:01:14.320 Yeah, please, please. 00:01:15.460 --> 00:01:16.400 By all means. 00:01:16.800 --> 00:01:21.600 So, you start out life as wanting to be an actor. 00:01:22.380 --> 00:01:22.720 Yeah. 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:27.340 Well, I mean, I must have emerged from my mother's womb not knowing what to do. 00:01:27.620 --> 00:01:31.720 By the time I was sick. 00:01:31.880 --> 00:01:33.980 Given time and food and nourishment. 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:35.260 Yeah, exactly. 00:01:35.580 --> 00:01:39.380 After suckling a bit, I thought, yes. 00:01:40.160 --> 00:01:49.940 I was about six years of age when I was in a camp play as the legend goes, and I made people laugh and cry, and I thought, wow, that's wonderful. 00:01:50.660 --> 00:01:52.640 And I've never done anything else. 00:01:53.180 --> 00:02:01.940 So I was channel surfing one night, and I stumbled on you in a bit role in the movie Judgment at Nuremberg. 00:02:01.960 --> 00:02:03.940 You were like a court clerk. 00:02:04.540 --> 00:02:07.380 You know, a court jester, according to some people, right. 00:02:10.260 --> 00:02:11.520 No, but it's true. 00:02:11.560 --> 00:02:25.340 I sat there, the whole movie, at that legal table, watching these incredible luminaries from the screen pass by and do a day's work and then leave and come back. 00:02:25.440 --> 00:02:30.320 It was an extraordinary experience for a young actor. 00:02:30.340 --> 00:02:40.660 And there I am, binging, because on classic and all the old episodes of The Twilight Zone, and you're two episodes. 00:02:41.640 --> 00:02:46.140 You've got a double credit in two separate distinct episodes. 00:02:47.260 --> 00:02:50.280 Yeah, and they are among the most popular, strangely. 00:02:50.740 --> 00:02:52.180 The reason for that, I don't know. 00:02:52.860 --> 00:03:04.960 Perhaps your sagacity, you would be able to analyze why those two shows have remained in the top 13 every time they play a group with them. 00:03:04.980 --> 00:03:13.800 I don't understand the popularity, but it must have something to do with touching some core of humanity. 00:03:13.820 --> 00:03:24.260 Well, you play a slightly crazy person in each one, just only slightly, just enough where the viewer can relate to your anxieties. 00:03:25.380 --> 00:03:30.040 Being anxious about something, like in one case, flying. 00:03:30.260 --> 00:03:31.880 We're always anxious about flying. 00:03:31.900 --> 00:03:45.240 And the other one was about getting your fortune told, and we're always worried about what the future holds and why did I say that for something in the past. 00:03:45.260 --> 00:03:47.780 So we're always concerned about those two subjects. 00:03:48.760 --> 00:04:07.380 Yeah, so for that reason, I think, as you correctly deduced, it reached into us as viewers in a way that, while you were a slightly extreme version of it, we felt enough of ourselves in your character to relate to it more deeply than I think other characters portrayed or written for. 00:04:07.400 --> 00:04:27.140 So I just want to make sure that your acting chops are out there up front, because to take this ramp into space, initially, of course, with Star Trek, ultimately doing it for real, did you have any space influences when you were a kid? 00:04:27.160 --> 00:04:32.260 You were already fully grown up during the Apollo era, so we can't credit that. 00:04:33.220 --> 00:04:37.480 Space wasn't mentioned, you know, all those years ago. 00:04:39.380 --> 00:04:46.700 There was the sun, there was the moon, and people were running around trying to figure out how they hung in the sky. 00:04:47.080 --> 00:04:49.220 I was after Galileo. 00:04:49.760 --> 00:04:50.080 Okay. 00:05:04.340 --> 00:05:08.680 But no, there wasn't anything about space. 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:22.080 I was always interested in football, and I was acting in Montreal doing amateur theatricals. 00:05:22.100 --> 00:05:23.700 I don't know what it was. 00:05:28.220 --> 00:05:34.980 I think there's something in my genetic makeup that allowed me to be an intuitive actor. 00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:36.040 I've never studied. 00:05:36.060 --> 00:05:37.700 I don't know how you study to be an actor. 00:05:37.980 --> 00:05:42.940 But there are styles, and I just fell into those styles. 00:05:42.960 --> 00:05:44.440 I may have seen them in movies. 00:05:44.460 --> 00:05:45.600 Maybe I was imitating them. 00:05:45.900 --> 00:05:49.860 But there is a regality to Shakespeare. 00:05:51.740 --> 00:05:59.340 There is a featness to 18th century, 19th century comedy. 00:06:00.120 --> 00:06:09.580 There are styles that you sort of acquire the way you speak, the way you move your hands, your feet. 00:06:09.940 --> 00:06:12.780 I never studied it, but somehow I knew it, and I don't know how. 00:06:14.080 --> 00:06:24.480 Well, so what's happening then is the world, we enter the Cold War, there's an arms race, and there's also the birth of a space race. 00:06:25.140 --> 00:06:33.420 And there's a poignant part of Shatner in space, which is just now posting on Amazon Prime. 00:06:34.280 --> 00:06:37.320 If you have a video subscription there, I think it's quote free. 00:06:38.640 --> 00:06:53.800 In that program, there's a poignant moment where the Star Trek series, which went three seasons, just barely longer than Gilligan's Island, whatever, okay? 00:06:54.200 --> 00:07:10.100 And it ends, you're out of a job, you and your wife divorce, and there you were putting a vision of space into our hearts and minds, and now that's gone, yet you witness Neil Armstrong taking first steps on the Moon. 00:07:10.520 --> 00:07:14.920 Could you just tell us about what you were feeling in that moment, the contrast of these two? 00:07:15.080 --> 00:07:25.080 Yeah, well, I got a divorce just as the show was canceled, and I don't know whether you know this or not, Neil, but divorces are very expensive. 00:07:27.340 --> 00:07:47.880 So there I was, I had this divorce, I was now broke, and I was coming off a series which in those days meant that the people who hire think, oh, no, well, he's known for that, and we won't hire him for this because he's known for that. 00:07:48.180 --> 00:07:52.960 That sort of thinking went on for a while, and I was in that thinking. 00:07:52.980 --> 00:08:21.680 So it was difficult for me to find a really good acting job, and so I decided I would do Summer Stock, and the Summer Stock is out on the East Coast, on the Cape Cod, and so I don't remember whether I bought a truck or whether I had an old truck, and I put a cab on the back of that pickup truck, and it had a shower and a bed, and I had a dog. 00:08:21.760 --> 00:08:24.260 I've always had a dog, a Doberman Pinscher. 00:08:24.600 --> 00:08:28.660 So there was a book out in those years called Travel with Charlie. 00:08:29.660 --> 00:08:32.000 I remember that, John Steinbeck. 00:08:32.420 --> 00:08:49.220 I did Travels with Charlie, only my dog, I don't remember his name, but a regal, marvelous male Doberman sat beside me, and I drove across country and put together a play and did summer stock. 00:08:49.500 --> 00:08:54.340 Part of that summer stock goes on to Long Island and the Hamptons. 00:08:54.560 --> 00:08:58.480 But just to be clear, just to be clear, you were homeless at this point. 00:09:00.520 --> 00:09:03.800 No, no, I had a home that was in the back of a truck. 00:09:03.820 --> 00:09:04.800 Your home was on wheels. 00:09:04.820 --> 00:09:08.600 If a guy sleeps in his car, is he homeless or has he got a Chevy? 00:09:09.960 --> 00:09:11.460 My address is Chevy. 00:09:24.940 --> 00:09:29.640 You could sleep full out, flat out on the bench seating. 00:09:29.680 --> 00:09:30.360 Exactly. 00:09:30.540 --> 00:09:36.700 So the philosophical question is, are you homeless if you're in something you own in your car? 00:09:36.720 --> 00:09:37.920 You're not sleeping on the streets. 00:09:38.520 --> 00:09:44.500 So I had a little tiny house here, which I didn't pay for. 00:09:46.240 --> 00:09:47.820 So I slept in the back of this truck. 00:09:48.900 --> 00:09:51.900 And you said you also ended up from Cape Cod into the Hamptons, is that right? 00:09:52.680 --> 00:09:57.100 I'm in Cape Cod, and I park in a pasture. 00:09:59.080 --> 00:10:06.240 And I'm living there, and I go and I drive over to the theater a mile or so away, perform at night. 00:10:06.520 --> 00:10:11.800 And then that night I drive to the pasture and park and sleep in the cab. 00:10:12.260 --> 00:10:30.900 So it was this evening that I was sitting in a chair in the cab, or lying down in the chair, and I'm looking through the window at the moon, and I've got a little black and white TV set, and I'm tuned in to Armstrong on the moon. 00:10:31.560 --> 00:10:38.040 And I had been at the Cape the year before and had some wonderful exchanges. 00:10:38.420 --> 00:10:54.700 I laid down in the lem, I looked around, the astronauts took me around, they gave me a model of the Enterprise, and I signed it, I'll see you on the moon. 00:10:54.880 --> 00:10:58.220 And I was like a junior astronaut. 00:10:59.200 --> 00:11:00.780 And everyone was, oh, thank you very much. 00:11:00.800 --> 00:11:03.460 And they laughed, and then I left. 00:11:03.480 --> 00:11:10.380 And a year later, I'm looking at Armstrong putting his foot on the moon. 00:11:10.620 --> 00:11:20.780 And we had discovered, either then or a little bit later, that as our ratings in Star Trek went up, the government voted more money for NASA. 00:11:21.720 --> 00:11:22.820 It became more popular. 00:11:22.840 --> 00:11:27.520 We popularized, Star Trek popularized space travel. 00:11:28.220 --> 00:11:36.040 And so I felt, in some tiny, miniscule way, I had a little something to do with that. 00:11:36.900 --> 00:11:39.520 And the world is watching. 00:11:39.800 --> 00:11:49.600 And I'm lying bereft, money, moneyless, homeless, in my Chevy, looking at him go on the moon. 00:11:49.620 --> 00:11:57.420 And the irony of that incredible moment and my destitution struck me even then. 00:11:57.520 --> 00:12:00.700 And upon retelling, I'm able to make it even more dramatic. 00:12:04.120 --> 00:12:05.920 So Bill, here's my analysis. 00:12:06.140 --> 00:12:11.920 I think what happens is, once we're going to the moon, we don't need you, right? 00:12:11.960 --> 00:12:15.400 Because all of a sudden space exploration is real. 00:12:15.580 --> 00:12:16.940 It's no longer pretend. 00:12:17.240 --> 00:12:27.060 And then three years later, only three years, 1969, boots on the moon, 1972, no longer boots on the moon. 00:12:27.440 --> 00:12:29.700 We stop going into space. 00:12:29.760 --> 00:12:31.080 And here's my analysis. 00:12:31.100 --> 00:12:38.200 I think we all say to ourselves, wait a minute, that's not, wait a minute, this is supposed to keep going. 00:12:38.300 --> 00:12:39.340 And it didn't. 00:12:40.200 --> 00:12:40.860 It didn't. 00:12:40.940 --> 00:12:46.240 Even the film 2001, A Space Odyssey, 1968, that was imagining 2001. 00:12:46.520 --> 00:12:48.020 Wait a minute, this all stopped. 00:12:48.440 --> 00:12:49.660 Well, what do we have left? 00:12:50.480 --> 00:12:52.620 We got to go back to Star Trek. 00:12:52.980 --> 00:12:54.380 Star Trek was that hope. 00:12:54.760 --> 00:13:01.280 And so your popularity grew in reruns bigger than it ever was during the show. 00:13:01.780 --> 00:13:02.420 Much bigger. 00:13:02.440 --> 00:13:04.280 Star Trek took off in reruns. 00:13:04.960 --> 00:13:07.780 In reruns and into the 70s. 00:13:07.800 --> 00:13:08.560 After seven years later. 00:13:09.720 --> 00:13:11.400 After we stopped going to the moon. 00:13:11.420 --> 00:13:16.100 So you, dude, became our only hope at that point. 00:13:16.120 --> 00:13:16.660 I know. 00:13:16.680 --> 00:13:20.580 You were betting the wrong money. 00:13:22.160 --> 00:13:23.980 You had your money on the wrong guy. 00:13:25.900 --> 00:13:37.080 So I think the fact that we became more distant from space made Star Trek that much more important and relevant to us. 00:13:37.640 --> 00:13:39.560 That's my, how do you, what do you think of that? 00:13:39.980 --> 00:13:50.820 Well, I think it's beautiful and I hardly agree with you that I alone brought the, NASA redid itself because of me. 00:13:51.120 --> 00:13:51.460 No. 00:13:53.620 --> 00:14:00.180 What happened is the expense of going to the moon. 00:14:00.580 --> 00:14:09.460 Kennedy's saying we shall go, we're gonna go to the moon in a decade and American pride made us do it. 00:14:09.960 --> 00:14:14.640 Once we had done it, it was like, oh God, we're not gonna spend any more money on that. 00:14:14.660 --> 00:14:19.800 We got, you know, we got the politicians' pockets to line and all the money is gone. 00:14:21.240 --> 00:14:33.020 So they, because of the expense, and I don't know what happened, but it was like the air went out of American determination in space. 00:14:34.100 --> 00:14:35.340 We lost it for a while. 00:14:36.780 --> 00:14:58.320 You know, I don't know whether this is apocryphal or not, but my understanding is Yuri Gagarin, and for your audience to remind them, he was a Russian astronaut who made the first launch into space, came down like a stone in a parachute. 00:14:58.340 --> 00:15:08.300 He was up there for a brief moment, and apparently he said, it's blue, and then parachuted down. 00:15:09.120 --> 00:15:16.420 Now, we see the sky as blue, and we say, oh, that's blue, but knowledgeable people know that's refraction of the sun. 00:15:16.600 --> 00:15:25.140 The air is colorless, but whatever it is, the water, the moisture in the air gives us the blue color. 00:15:25.560 --> 00:15:32.520 And so we think, okay, well, but it's colorless, just blue because of the refraction of the sun. 00:15:33.020 --> 00:15:37.660 He gets above it, and he says, it's blue. 00:15:39.260 --> 00:15:50.580 And I thought when I heard that story, I thought, what a glorious moment when the first human being looks down upon our planet and says, it's blue. 00:15:50.820 --> 00:15:51.660 And what a color. 00:15:51.680 --> 00:15:53.940 I mean, blue is a beautiful color. 00:15:54.400 --> 00:15:57.020 It's so engaging. 00:15:57.020 --> 00:15:59.500 It's so calming. 00:15:59.520 --> 00:16:06.400 I mean, you paint a room blue because you want the color to be restful. 00:16:06.980 --> 00:16:10.840 Air Force One is painted blue, in part for that reason. 00:16:10.860 --> 00:16:14.160 It's a very calming color for that. 00:16:14.460 --> 00:16:21.040 I have gone across this continent many times uncountable times, in every manner possible. 00:16:21.360 --> 00:16:23.560 When I was a kid, I thumbed across the United States. 00:16:23.760 --> 00:16:29.180 I left Montreal, got to San Diego, went to Vancouver, got to Chicago, back to Montreal on my thumb. 00:16:29.880 --> 00:16:32.160 I've motorcycled across the continent. 00:16:32.280 --> 00:16:33.460 I've driven a truck. 00:16:33.480 --> 00:16:35.840 I've driven in a sports car. 00:16:35.860 --> 00:16:36.780 I've been with a family. 00:16:36.800 --> 00:16:37.360 I've been alone. 00:16:37.620 --> 00:16:40.140 I mean, it's endless, Neil. 00:16:40.760 --> 00:16:42.340 The continent is endless. 00:16:42.360 --> 00:16:44.780 The roads go disappear into infinity. 00:16:45.580 --> 00:16:48.460 And you think, I am a good, oh, my lord, I have to go. 00:16:48.480 --> 00:16:52.580 And then you get to that point of infinity, and it goes even further. 00:16:53.180 --> 00:16:53.780 It's not. 00:16:54.820 --> 00:17:02.340 It's then by rising above it and looking down, oh, my god, it's minute. 00:17:03.460 --> 00:17:04.700 The earth is minute. 00:17:06.100 --> 00:17:18.000 And only then do you begin to get a sense of the relationship of this little rock to the vastness of space. 00:17:18.140 --> 00:17:27.500 Bill, we got to take our first break, but when we return, more of my conversation with the inimitable, or occasionally imitable. 00:17:39.097 --> 00:17:41.777 I'm Joel Cherico, and I make pottery. 00:17:42.317 --> 00:17:45.717 You can see my pottery on my website, cosmicmugs.com. 00:17:45.957 --> 00:17:49.417 Cosmic Mugs, art that lets you taste the universe every day. 00:17:50.037 --> 00:17:52.037 And I support StarTalk on Patreon. 00:17:52.517 --> 00:17:54.717 This is Star Talk with Neil deGrasse Tyson. 00:18:00.897 --> 00:18:02.637 We're back with William Shatner. 00:18:03.077 --> 00:18:10.537 So, you, I think, are correctly recognizing that Yuri Gagarin sees Earth as a blue planet, okay? 00:18:10.557 --> 00:18:16.917 By the way, even in Star Trek, images of Earth were not really about it feeling blue. 00:18:17.057 --> 00:18:19.717 That really took actual journeys into space. 00:18:20.417 --> 00:18:28.977 And so, are you ever thinking, while you're Starship Captain, that you'll ever actually be high up above Earth and see the blue planet? 00:18:29.557 --> 00:18:30.537 That's fantasy. 00:18:30.677 --> 00:18:32.437 The whole thing was fantasy. 00:18:32.457 --> 00:18:42.377 Sometimes we'd laugh about how fantastical we were on stage 27 at Paramount Studios pretending to be, we're in space and we move the rocks around. 00:18:42.577 --> 00:18:44.637 Now we're on a planet and we shoot this gun. 00:18:44.817 --> 00:18:50.157 And later they put a little light thing in and it's all fantasy. 00:18:50.277 --> 00:18:54.557 It's all beautiful fantasy about human beings somewhere in the future. 00:18:54.577 --> 00:18:59.237 But it's, you know, it's these crazy guys who are thinking futuristically. 00:19:00.157 --> 00:19:02.277 Never thought I'm going to go up there. 00:19:03.197 --> 00:19:12.297 Well, just to be clear, Star Trek wasn't, at least for me and I think for practically anyone who observed it, was not just space fantasy. 00:19:12.517 --> 00:19:21.257 There was space movies and space, you know, there was Lost in Space was a TV show, but that didn't somehow get deep within our soul. 00:19:22.177 --> 00:19:25.017 Star Trek had messages within it. 00:19:25.077 --> 00:19:27.997 It had more, they were morality tales. 00:19:28.017 --> 00:19:37.797 The surroundings were fanciful, but the meanings, the reason it's popular, I think, is just what you're saying, that it dealt with human beings. 00:19:38.077 --> 00:19:40.217 But I meant the surroundings were fanciful. 00:19:40.577 --> 00:19:51.357 If you're talking about racism and a guy is half black on the right and half white on the left, and he meets a guy who's half black on the left and half white on the right, he's like, who are you? 00:19:51.377 --> 00:19:54.097 And we were fighting and we're, because you're different from me. 00:19:54.477 --> 00:20:09.437 And so the stupidity, the nonsensical stupidity of racism is evident by these two guys who are fighting over the fact that one's different from the other slightly. 00:20:10.277 --> 00:20:10.677 It becomes- 00:20:10.697 --> 00:20:21.397 But the value of telling a space tale is you get to present that to people without them being confronted in their behavior. 00:20:21.417 --> 00:20:25.677 They have to sort of internalize it and then realize it for themselves rather than- 00:20:25.697 --> 00:20:27.177 And think of how that would work. 00:20:27.917 --> 00:20:29.677 Exactly, think of how that would work. 00:20:29.877 --> 00:20:32.457 The guy's like, oh, geez, what's he complaining about? 00:20:32.477 --> 00:20:34.237 It's got the black hair and the white hair in the morning. 00:20:34.837 --> 00:20:42.837 Some guy who may be prejudiced in any way is laughing at the stupidity of this guy. 00:20:43.997 --> 00:20:54.797 And he doesn't realize he's laughing at the stupidity of racism until later in the way, if he's, at some point in time, whoop, yeah, listen, black, white, what's the difference? 00:20:55.137 --> 00:20:58.617 So that was the beauty of Star Trek. 00:20:59.197 --> 00:21:00.037 Yeah, yeah. 00:21:00.137 --> 00:21:05.297 And so it meant more than just a tale told in space. 00:21:05.657 --> 00:21:19.517 And by the way, just, if I can fanboy a little bit here, anytime I'm asked, okay, Kirk or Picard, I'll get this, you know, this is like, they quiz you that when you enter Comic Con, right? 00:21:19.617 --> 00:21:21.897 Kirk or Picard, like Kirk all the time. 00:21:22.077 --> 00:21:22.937 And let me tell you why. 00:21:22.957 --> 00:21:23.337 Me too. 00:21:28.737 --> 00:21:30.837 No, I'll tell you why, I'll tell you why. 00:21:30.977 --> 00:21:42.457 Because your character actually, not that, I'm a very nonviolent person, so let me start with that, but let me just say, your character would fight the bad guys. 00:21:43.117 --> 00:21:50.157 If you see your captain actually getting into a fistfight, oh my gosh, they're invested in this. 00:21:50.377 --> 00:21:57.177 They care about what is true and righteous on a level where they're putting their own lives at risk. 00:21:57.417 --> 00:22:03.677 You fought the gorn, you did, not some pawn that you sent out to do so. 00:22:04.037 --> 00:22:09.617 And so I thought that level of bravery for a captain, I greatly valued. 00:22:10.057 --> 00:22:39.377 And my favorite line, my favorite line, and forgive me, the Star Trek fans for not knowing the exact details, your character is on the bridge, your shields don't work anymore, the enemy vessel is out front, and you execute some command that's mysterious on a channel that's already been decoded, and Spock says, Captain, this is no time for a game of chess. 00:22:40.017 --> 00:22:43.317 And that command was a self-destruct command that would also destroy the enemy ship. 00:22:43.337 --> 00:22:45.817 Captain, there's no time for a game of chess. 00:22:45.837 --> 00:22:48.537 And you said, No, Spock, it's poker. 00:22:48.757 --> 00:22:52.497 And I say, Yes, that's my captain. 00:22:54.437 --> 00:22:56.697 I totally forgot that. 00:22:57.017 --> 00:22:58.017 Oh, no. 00:22:58.477 --> 00:23:03.697 Can you imagine the wonderful writer who wrote that thing? 00:23:03.977 --> 00:23:09.277 Best line ever, especially because Spock is right here. 00:23:09.497 --> 00:23:15.197 And then you say, No, you are more right, because you're bluffing, and they don't know it. 00:23:17.337 --> 00:23:17.697 Oh, my God. 00:23:17.717 --> 00:23:20.597 I'm on the team, Captain Kirk, the whole way. 00:23:21.677 --> 00:23:24.237 So now you get tapped by Jeff Bezos. 00:23:24.917 --> 00:23:27.237 And they must have known. 00:23:28.017 --> 00:23:38.777 About two years before that, about three years now, Jason Erlich, a friend of mine who was a producer on another series I did, said, You know, you should go up in the middle. 00:23:38.797 --> 00:23:40.077 No, I'm not going to go up there. 00:23:40.697 --> 00:23:41.357 Who cares? 00:23:41.377 --> 00:23:42.437 And I don't want to jeopardize. 00:23:42.957 --> 00:23:44.297 He says, But it would be good. 00:23:44.317 --> 00:23:44.977 No, no, no. 00:23:45.257 --> 00:23:49.117 Anyway, the idea suggested they say come up to Seattle. 00:23:49.137 --> 00:23:50.057 We fly up to Seattle. 00:23:50.077 --> 00:23:50.677 I meet Jeff. 00:23:51.597 --> 00:23:55.217 The whole lobby of Amazon is all Star Trek. 00:23:55.377 --> 00:23:57.937 We sit down at the table, Shatner up in space. 00:23:57.957 --> 00:23:58.597 That sounds good. 00:23:58.617 --> 00:23:59.217 We'll let you know. 00:23:59.237 --> 00:23:59.837 And we go back. 00:24:00.677 --> 00:24:02.417 Then COVID hits and nothing happens. 00:24:02.437 --> 00:24:05.657 Then we hear that Jeff Bezos is going to go up in space himself. 00:24:05.937 --> 00:24:07.897 So we think, Well, maybe he'll choose Shatner. 00:24:07.897 --> 00:24:12.397 No, he chooses his brother and a lady with gray hair. 00:24:12.417 --> 00:24:12.857 And a boy. 00:24:13.217 --> 00:24:15.277 And they go up. 00:24:15.277 --> 00:24:16.957 I said, Well, let's see. 00:24:16.977 --> 00:24:18.557 Well, maybe they'll let you go in a second. 00:24:18.577 --> 00:24:20.937 But no, I don't want to go up second, for God's sake. 00:24:21.117 --> 00:24:22.357 That's the vice president. 00:24:22.377 --> 00:24:23.357 We want the president. 00:24:26.977 --> 00:24:29.217 So then they asked me to go up on the second one. 00:24:30.157 --> 00:24:31.017 Now I'm not going. 00:24:31.037 --> 00:24:31.837 So I turn it down. 00:24:32.337 --> 00:24:36.897 But then I, in my, you might have an explanation for it. 00:24:36.957 --> 00:24:39.357 The wonderful moment between sleep and wake. 00:24:39.517 --> 00:24:45.817 When you're lying there thinking, you know, and your brain is going and you've got all kinds of wonderful ideas which you forget and you get up. 00:24:47.057 --> 00:24:50.917 I'm thinking, you know, going up to space is an experience. 00:24:51.517 --> 00:24:53.177 I should try and experience that. 00:24:53.397 --> 00:24:55.137 As fearful as it sounds. 00:24:55.857 --> 00:24:59.317 So I agree to do it, thinking it's innocuous. 00:24:59.757 --> 00:25:01.597 I just go up, come down. 00:25:01.897 --> 00:25:02.477 Who cares? 00:25:02.497 --> 00:25:03.377 And I've had that experience. 00:25:04.777 --> 00:25:09.217 Who knew that it would be as newsworthy as it was? 00:25:09.357 --> 00:25:09.737 I didn't. 00:25:09.837 --> 00:25:13.577 I thought it would be unknown. 00:25:13.597 --> 00:25:21.637 Well, let me just say that you can't just send up any famous actor and have the same reaction as sending you. 00:25:22.097 --> 00:25:24.377 There's no question about this. 00:25:24.797 --> 00:25:41.977 So in the Shatner in Space documentary, he's got all this footage in anticipation of you going into space and some really fun encounter with you and your wife and daughters where you announce to them that and they say, Dad, are you going to die? 00:25:42.337 --> 00:25:44.137 We don't want to lose a dad on this. 00:25:44.797 --> 00:25:52.077 And of course, if you died, you'd go out completely in flames, but in space. 00:25:52.357 --> 00:26:00.177 And what a glorious ending it would be rather than lose your teeth slowly, one by one, one by one. 00:26:00.197 --> 00:26:05.137 Yeah, no, I think Captain Kirk, you know. 00:26:10.657 --> 00:26:12.077 Toothless Captain Kirk. 00:26:15.457 --> 00:26:24.477 So and of course, no, there's no reason to have pre-footage of just any random famous person who's about to go suborbital. 00:26:24.717 --> 00:26:25.757 It's not interesting. 00:26:26.177 --> 00:26:34.237 We need someone with space legacy who sat at the fulcrum of people's hopes and dreams of space, and that was you. 00:26:34.617 --> 00:26:41.977 So I'm delighted that such a documentary could be made with that footage, and we see this side of you. 00:26:41.997 --> 00:26:43.697 I mean, I was delighted by that. 00:26:43.717 --> 00:26:49.177 I was worried because you guys had to walk up to the capsule, up all those damn steps. 00:26:50.717 --> 00:26:52.197 Jerry Picker is going to carry you up. 00:26:52.657 --> 00:26:54.537 I mean, dude, you're 90 years old. 00:26:55.937 --> 00:26:58.257 I'm telling you, they asked me to come a day early. 00:26:58.477 --> 00:27:01.277 It's hysterical that you should come upon that point. 00:27:01.497 --> 00:27:05.437 So why don't I go there, and maybe Mr. 00:27:05.457 --> 00:27:09.837 Bezos will be there and I'll have a chance to talk to him, and he wasn't. 00:27:09.997 --> 00:27:12.097 And so here's the gantry. 00:27:12.117 --> 00:27:14.637 Let's go to the gantry and see what the gantry... 00:27:17.337 --> 00:27:18.857 Okay, let's go and see what the gantry... 00:27:19.217 --> 00:27:20.837 Let's walk up the gantry. 00:27:23.197 --> 00:27:27.937 11 flights, 11 flights and 4,000 altitude. 00:27:27.937 --> 00:27:31.137 And I'm going up, and I'm going... 00:27:31.197 --> 00:27:32.077 Oh, look how pretty. 00:27:32.097 --> 00:27:34.917 I stop at some landing. 00:27:35.637 --> 00:27:40.857 Well, it's really pretty, and then another three flights. 00:27:40.897 --> 00:27:43.677 And I finally get to the top, but I made it. 00:27:43.957 --> 00:27:50.597 And I now, looking back, I've got to assume somebody said, Jesus, do you think you'll make it up the gantry? 00:27:50.617 --> 00:27:52.517 He's 90 years old. 00:27:54.957 --> 00:27:57.017 I now know that was a checkout. 00:28:00.237 --> 00:28:01.697 Imagine if I had failed. 00:28:01.777 --> 00:28:02.497 What would they do? 00:28:02.517 --> 00:28:04.517 Oh, sorry, Shatner. 00:28:04.537 --> 00:28:06.757 We lost Shatner on the fourth step. 00:28:11.757 --> 00:28:13.837 Oh, Lord, I'm telling you, that was... 00:28:14.357 --> 00:28:16.897 When I look back on that, I have to laugh. 00:28:17.317 --> 00:28:20.397 What if I hadn't made it? 00:28:20.417 --> 00:28:27.717 So, I was walking up and there'd be like seven people behind me, you know, scampering up there, 20 years old. 00:28:27.737 --> 00:28:28.717 Hey, let's go. 00:28:28.737 --> 00:28:31.337 And I go, yeah, we'll go. 00:28:33.217 --> 00:28:35.297 I used to be able to scramble up, Neil. 00:28:35.417 --> 00:28:36.437 You may not believe it. 00:28:36.677 --> 00:28:38.477 I used to be able to run up 11th Lake. 00:28:46.044 --> 00:28:47.844 I am right now 63. 00:28:47.864 --> 00:28:51.904 Any of your strengths leaving you? 00:28:52.284 --> 00:28:55.504 Like, can you open a bottle top as easily as you did before? 00:28:56.604 --> 00:29:04.424 No, but I take kindly the Council of the Years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. 00:29:05.124 --> 00:29:07.724 So do you hand the bottle over to your wife? 00:29:07.744 --> 00:29:08.284 My son. 00:29:08.724 --> 00:29:10.944 Would you mind opening the bottle for me? 00:29:11.784 --> 00:29:12.964 No, I've got tools. 00:29:12.984 --> 00:29:17.384 Would you mind getting the lease up, this bag up of the upper when they're flying? 00:29:17.884 --> 00:29:18.684 I need some help. 00:29:18.984 --> 00:29:19.864 The bag is heavy. 00:29:19.884 --> 00:29:22.084 No, I've got tools. 00:29:22.104 --> 00:29:22.904 I've got tools now. 00:29:22.924 --> 00:29:23.564 I've got tools. 00:29:24.244 --> 00:29:25.024 I'm good with that. 00:29:25.944 --> 00:29:38.524 But the, I was saying, so there's some shots of you inside the capsule before and during and after, and there's one of them, when you're weightless, I don't mind, I'm gonna tell you, you look like you were about to barf. 00:29:39.164 --> 00:29:40.764 Just your facial expression. 00:29:40.784 --> 00:29:43.424 So, you don't have to divulge that here. 00:29:43.444 --> 00:29:44.484 I was thinking about it. 00:29:44.704 --> 00:29:51.384 I wasn't thinking, I wonder if I, and you know that vomit comet, they fly. 00:29:51.404 --> 00:29:51.624 Yeah. 00:29:52.204 --> 00:29:56.284 You know, the outside loop that they get and everybody's ready to go. 00:29:56.704 --> 00:29:58.104 The airplane that would barf. 00:29:59.144 --> 00:30:05.644 Yeah, if you barf, there's nothing worse than zero-g vomit, okay, because it doesn't just fall. 00:30:05.664 --> 00:30:08.204 Now all your attention is trying to avoid it. 00:30:12.184 --> 00:30:14.584 Here comes one straight at you. 00:30:14.984 --> 00:30:15.504 Be careful. 00:30:15.644 --> 00:30:18.044 And all your attention is dodging the barf. 00:30:23.924 --> 00:30:33.124 So tell me, so for me, whatever I would miss most, I think if I never get to experience this, is the feeling of weightlessness. 00:30:33.144 --> 00:30:34.344 So can you describe that? 00:30:36.404 --> 00:30:42.104 No, I can't because there aren't words in the English language. 00:30:42.144 --> 00:30:44.064 Weightlessness is a new thing. 00:30:44.244 --> 00:30:47.484 There aren't words to describe weightlessness. 00:30:47.524 --> 00:30:48.964 Oh, you're weightless and lift your arm. 00:30:49.024 --> 00:30:50.484 Well, you can't, you can't. 00:30:52.204 --> 00:31:04.384 The whole rehearsal part, the practice part, was getting in and out of that seat in weightlessness, but of course you're not weightless, so you have no idea of how to get into that seat and tie yourself in because you're gonna hit seven G's. 00:31:04.764 --> 00:31:08.184 So weightlessness, like suddenly I'm floating, but I don't wanna float. 00:31:09.144 --> 00:31:13.584 I wanna get to that window and see, and see whatever it is I'm gonna see. 00:31:13.604 --> 00:31:18.784 And there's footage of Jeff Bezos in the first flight. 00:31:19.104 --> 00:31:22.124 He's weightless and his ass is towards the camera. 00:31:24.344 --> 00:31:28.304 And this kid is throwing skittles at his ass. 00:31:29.384 --> 00:31:31.964 That's the first moment of weightlessness. 00:31:32.384 --> 00:31:34.544 And I thought, I'm not gonna see this weightlessness. 00:31:35.344 --> 00:31:36.984 Having a kid throw that. 00:31:37.564 --> 00:31:38.884 I gotta get to that window. 00:31:40.924 --> 00:31:41.524 That's what I... 00:31:41.544 --> 00:31:43.424 It just depends how big your ass is, right? 00:31:44.604 --> 00:31:46.484 So it's indescribable. 00:31:46.484 --> 00:31:51.164 You're weightless, but it's not like being in water, which they practice, the astronauts practice. 00:31:51.284 --> 00:31:53.784 It's like nothing, it's indescribable. 00:31:54.304 --> 00:31:56.604 It's like floating. 00:31:57.044 --> 00:32:07.824 If you imagine yourself floating, but your body's not accustomed to not feeling gravity, so it's like what, and you're startled. 00:32:07.844 --> 00:32:10.244 You're like, what is the sensation? 00:32:11.004 --> 00:32:19.744 And everybody's had things to plan, like we'll lift our hand up, and in the first flight they had hello mother or something like that. 00:32:19.764 --> 00:32:20.284 I had nothing. 00:32:20.484 --> 00:32:23.644 I didn't, I wanted to, oh my Lord. 00:32:24.624 --> 00:32:26.684 It was awkward, like you didn't know what to do. 00:32:26.924 --> 00:32:33.524 Now, if you spent time just in weightlessness, like they have that updraft of air. 00:32:34.644 --> 00:32:36.084 Oh yeah, I know what you're talking about. 00:32:36.084 --> 00:32:39.964 Yeah, yeah, the skydiving. 00:32:41.644 --> 00:32:42.624 Right, exactly. 00:32:42.644 --> 00:32:45.644 So you can practice in a chamber. 00:32:51.344 --> 00:33:00.264 That's approaching it, I guess, but here, it's like being ill with an illness you don't know. 00:33:00.284 --> 00:33:05.344 I don't know whether it's feverish or, you know, something that you, how am I feeling? 00:33:05.764 --> 00:33:13.204 What am I, it's the complete unknown of weightlessness that occupies you to begin with. 00:33:13.364 --> 00:33:14.344 It's like startling. 00:33:14.364 --> 00:33:16.684 It's like, holy cats, what is that? 00:33:18.384 --> 00:33:21.884 Combined with, in my case, I want to get to that window. 00:33:22.624 --> 00:33:24.864 I don't want to waste any time being weightless. 00:33:24.884 --> 00:33:27.664 I want to see the earth. 00:33:27.684 --> 00:33:28.604 Or throwing skittles. 00:33:29.044 --> 00:33:33.004 You're not going to throw a skittle, you're not going to burn weightless time throwing skittles at anyone's end. 00:33:33.024 --> 00:33:33.464 Exactly. 00:33:33.864 --> 00:33:42.484 You have two minutes of weightlessness, two minutes in that orbit, in that moment, momentum. 00:33:42.844 --> 00:33:52.144 I wanted to make use of it by looking, by absorbing, having a sensation, seeing something that very few people have seen. 00:33:52.284 --> 00:33:53.244 We've got to take another break. 00:33:53.564 --> 00:33:56.084 When we return, more of my conversation. 00:34:09.055 --> 00:34:12.795 We're back with StarTalk's Conversation with William Shatner. 00:34:13.235 --> 00:34:15.495