(CNN) — For decades, astronauts have described their journeys into space as “breathtaking” and humbling, a reminder of Earth’s fragility and humanity’s need to serve as stewards of our home planet.
Actor William Shatner, who joined a suborbital space tourism flight last year, experienced the same phenomenon, but had a very different observation when he turned his gaze from Earth to the black expanse of the cosmos: “All I saw was death,” he wrote in a new book.
Shatner’s biography, called “Boldly Go,” which he co-wrote with TV and film writer Joshua Brandon, is filled with equally grim anecdotes about Shatner’s experience flying above Earth’s atmosphere aboard a rocket. real life after his memorable stint playing a spaceship captain on the 1960s TV show “Star Trek” and in several franchise films in the decades that followed.
Going to space left William Shatner ‘crying’ in pain
“I saw a cold, dark, black void. It was unlike any blackness you can see or feel on Earth. It was deep, enveloping, all-encompassing. I turned towards the light of the hearth. 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. Nurturing, sustaining, life. Mother Earth. Gaia. And she was leaving her,” reads an excerpt from “Boldly Go” that was first published by Variety.
“Everything I had thought was wrong,” he says. “Everything she expected to see was wrong.”
While he expected to be amazed at the sight of the cosmos, seen without the filter of Earth’s atmosphere, he was instead overwhelmed by the idea that humans are slowly destroying our home planet. He felt one of the strongest feelings of pain he has ever encountered, Shatner wrote.
Shatner’s book was published on October 4 by Simon & Schuster. CNN interviewed him in June about the book, his trip to space with the Jeff Bezos-backed space tourism company Blue Origin, and what’s next for the 91-year-old. A transcript of the interview, edited for length and clarity, is below.
CNN: We all saw how excited you were when you stepped out of the Blue Origin spacecraft after landing. How did that experience change you?
William Shatner: Fifty-five or sixty years ago I read a book called “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson. She wrote about the environmental problems that are still happening today. I have been a verbal environmentalist ever since. I have been aware of the changing Earth and my apprehension for all of us.
It’s like someone who owes money on a mortgage and doesn’t have the payments. And they think, “Oh, well, let’s go to dinner and not think about it.”
But it is so ubiquitous! The chances of an apocalypse are very real. It is difficult to convince people, and especially certain politicians, that this is no longer just around the corner. It’s in the house.
When I got to space, I wanted to get to the window to see what was out there. I looked into the blackness of space. There were no dazzling lights. It was just palpable blackness. I thought I saw death.
And then I looked back at Earth. Given my experience and having read a lot about the evolution of the Earth over 5 billion years and how all the beauty of nature has evolved, I thought about how we are killing everything.
I felt this overwhelming sadness for the Earth.
I didn’t realize until I got downstairs. When I got out of the spaceship, I started crying. I didn’t know why. It took me hours to understand why she was crying. I realized that I was grieving for the Earth.
I never want to forget, nor have I ever forgotten, the significance of that occasion.
CNN: What else have you realized about the experience in the months since you took your spaceflight?
William Shatner: He was aware that human beings may be the only living species on this planet that is aware of the enormity and majesty of the universe.
Think of what we have discovered in the last 100 years given the 200,000 years that humans have existed. We have discovered how the mountains were formed, the Big Bang. And I kept thinking about how humanity is rapidly evolving into a well-informed creature while committing suicide.
It’s a race.
CNN: Space tourism companies like Blue Origin have also taken a lot of flak from people who see such efforts as a vanity project for wealthy people rather than something that can be truly transformational. How do you respond to that criticism?
William Shatner: The general idea here is that people get used to going to space, as if it’s like going to the Riviera. It’s not just a vanity, it’s a business.
But what Jeff Bezos wants to do and what is slowly building up because of our familiarity with space is to put those polluting industries into orbit and make the Earth go back to what it was. (Editor’s note: Bezos has regularly talked about putting heavy industries into orbit to help preserve Earth, and that idea has its skeptics and critics, too.)
CNN: What do you think about the title of ‘astronaut’? Are people who pay for brief suborbital flights into space astronauts?
Shatner: I call them half astronauts.
CNN: What should we do now in space?
William Shatner: The ability to go to Mars lurking in the background, which I think should take a backseat to go to the Moon, set up the Moon as a base, and mine everything the Moon has to offer, rather than mine here .
Those are just my own opinions. The type what’s-his-name I would agree. He wants to go to Mars. (Editor’s note: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk founded his company with the goal of establishing a colony on Mars.)
CNN: Are you looking forward to going back to space?
Shatner: If you had a great love story, could you come back? Or would that degrade him?
CNN: You mentioned that you had the opportunity to speak with the famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking before he died. How was that experience?
William Shatner: I never got to ask him about string theory, which he wanted to do. We had to ask all the questions in advance. And he had said when we made the arrangement, “I want to ask Shatner a question.”
Finally, I lean in, you know, we’re sitting next to each other looking at the cameras.
So he laboriously wrote, “What’s your favorite Star Trek episode?”, which is the question every fan asks, and I started laughing. He did not have the ability to laugh (due to his degenerative disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS).
But his laughter showed in the redness of his face and he turned very red. Then she invited me to dinner. I had a beautiful moment with him.
CNN: What are you going to do now?
William Shatner: I should take the opportunity to say that I have an album called “Bill”. And I kept making songs with my collaborators. The song “So Fragile, So Blue” has a lot to do with my experience in space. I recently performed with (musician) Ben Folds at the Kennedy Center. It could be a TV show or an album.
I also have a really wonderful show called “The UnXplained” on the History Channel.
And then I have my book, called Boldly Go, which is coming out in the fall.
