William Shatner has taken aim at Prince William after the royal criticised space tourism last week.
After taking a space trip on one of Jeff Bezo’s rockets last week, Shatner said the prince has “got the wrong idea” by saying that Earth’s environmental problems should be solved before people can go on tourist trips into space.
This was the voyage of the RSS First Step today. Its mission: encounter Earth from incredible views at apogee pic.twitter.com/Gzsnkv97K9
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) October 13, 2021
“He’s a lovely, gentle, educated man, but he’s got the wrong idea,” Shatner said during an interview with Entertainment Tonight.
“The idea here is not to go, ‘Yeah, look at me. I’m in space’,” the Star Trek actor continued.
He claimed that space trips like his are a “baby step” towards moving polluting industries to space, saying that a power-generating base could be built 400km above Earth to supply the world with energy.
“The prince is missing the point,” he said.
“All it needs is … somebody as rich as Jeff Bezos [to say], ‘Let’s go up there’.”
Without mentioning any names, the Duke of Cambridge criticised the billionaires currently engaged in the space tourism race.
“We need some of the world’s greatest brains and minds fixed on trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live,” he said in an interview with the BBC.
Behind the scenes of #BBCNewscast, talking about the environment and The @EarthshotPrize 🌏
Look out for more this Thursday 📻 pic.twitter.com/RLDuATmrmi
— The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (@KensingtonRoyal) October 12, 2021
The prince also stated that he had “absolutely no interest” in going to space, expressing concerns over the environmental impact it would have.
Shatner was one of the passengers on a suborbital rocket built by Mr Bezo’s company Blue Origin, which reached the edge of Earth’s atmosphere and saw him become weightless.
The 90-year-old actor became the oldest person to launch into space, taking the title from 82-year-old Wally Funk, who was on Mr Bezo’s first suborbital flight.
Image: Getty Images
Shatner described the experience of floating above the Earth as “profound”.
He said a person couldn’t understand space travel until “you’re up there and you see the black darkness, the ugliness”.
“From our point of view, space is filled with mystery … but in that moment, it is blackness and death,” he told CNN after his flight.
“In this moment down here, as we look down, [Earth] is life and nurturing. That’s what everybody needs to know.”
Image: Getty Images
This article first appeared on Over60.