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Weather delays New Shepard’s Shatner launch one day

Capitalism in space: Because of high winds predicted for tomorrow, Blue Origin has delayed its next suborbital flight of New Shepard, carrying four private citizens including William Shatner, for one day to October 13th.

The launch is scheduled for 9:30 am (Eastern), with live coverage beginning at 8 am (Eastern) on Blue Origin’s website. Be warned, however. If you watch with the sound on you will likely have to listen to a lot of hype and blather from the company’s announcers, who routinely can’t keep their mouths shut and have to tell us over and over and over again how “spectacular” and “breath-taking” and “historic” this all is.

If they do pause in their hyperbole, however, listening to Shatner during the flight will likely be worth it. The man has wit and knows how to use it.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

5 comments

  • Phill O

    Will the flight or vehicle be labeled The Enterprise?

  • mpthompson

    Space, the final frontier…

    He’s just got to say it once while floating in space.

  • Phill O: The vehicle already has a name, New Shepard.

  • Mark

    I hope Shatner, while weightless for 4 minutes and at 66 miles altitude, does not say ‘Beam me up, Scotty!’

    Contrary to what popular culture promotes, ‘Beam me up, Scotty! ‘ was never said in an episode of the TV series Star Trek or in Star Trek movies.

    So I don’t want him starting now.

    However Shatner could say ‘Beam me down, Elon!’.

  • Col Beausabre

    The hype machine has begun – ninety minutes on two TV channels. You;d think the other three people don’t exist and all Shatner has to do is flap his arms to go to space. TV has a term, “stunt casting” when a celebrity appears on an episode for no apparent reason except to juice ratings. I propose we call celeb flights like this whose purpose is just publicity “stunt missions” and the individuals as “stunt crew members”

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