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    ‘William Shatner: You Can Call Me Bill’ Review: Living Long

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    A documentary on the “Star Trek” actor unboldly goes where other profile movies have gone before.The line between star and character gets thoroughly blurred in “William Shatner: You Can Call Me Bill,” a profile documentary that treats Shatner, the sole interviewee, as if he were as polished as Capt. James T. Kirk — as opposed to merely being the durable, hard-working actor who played him on “Star Trek” and a terrific raconteur.The director, Alexandre O. Philippe, churns out movie-themed documentaries that veer between insightful (“78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene”) and obsequious (“Memory: The Origins of Alien”). The fawning “You Can Call Me Bill” makes you like Shatner. Still, listening to the actor’s wit, wisdom and drippy insights for 96 minutes is enough to tempt any viewer to channel his or her inner Spock. (“Most illogical!”)“You Can Call Me Bill” is tedious when Shatner shares his thoughts on animals and spirituality (“You reach a connection with a horse that can be something mystical”) but sharp when he reflects on acting. It’s interesting to hear that he felt influenced both by the traditionalism of Laurence Olivier and the Stella Adler training of Marlon Brando; he suggests that split was related to his being Canadian, torn between British and American cultures. He probes deeply into his craft when speaking of selecting differentiated traits that an audience could identify in scenes that featured multiple Kirks and of wanting another take of his death scene close-up in “Star Trek: Generations” (1994).It’s hard not to smile during footage of Shatner, then 90, becoming the oldest person ever to travel to space. But “You Can Call Me Bill” is fundamentally a case of an actor presenting himself as he wants to be seen.You Can Call Me BillRated PG-13 for some language that would mostly pass on 1960s television. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Nichelle Nichols, Lieutenant Uhura on ‘Star Trek,’ Dies at 89

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      She was among the first Black women to have a leading role in a TV series. She later worked with NASA to recruit minorities for the space program.Nichelle Nichols, the actress revered by “Star Trek” fans everywhere for her role as Lieutenant Uhura, the communications officer on the starship U.S.S. Enterprise, died on Saturday in Silver City, N.M. She was 89.The cause was heart failure, said Sky Conway, a writer and a film producer who was asked by Kyle Johnson, Ms. Nichols’s son, to speak for the family.Ms. Nichols had a long career as an entertainer, beginning as a teenage supper-club singer and dancer in Chicago, her hometown, and later appearing on television.But she will forever be best remembered for her work on “Star Trek,” the cult-inspiring space adventure series that aired from 1966 to 1969 and starred William Shatner as Captain Kirk, the heroic leader of the starship crew; Leonard Nimoy (who died in 2015) as his science officer and adviser, Mr. Spock, an ultralogical humanoid from the planet Vulcan; and DeForest Kelley (who died in 1999) as Dr. McCoy, a.k.a. Bones, the ship’s physician.A striking beauty, Ms. Nichols provided a frisson of sexiness on the bridge of the Enterprise. She was generally clad in a snug red doublet and black tights; Ebony magazine called her the “most heavenly body in ‘Star Trek’” on its 1967 cover. Her role, however, was both substantial and historically significant.Uhura was an officer and a highly educated and well-trained technician who maintained a businesslike demeanor while performing her high-minded duties. Ms. Nichols was among the first Black women to have a leading role on a network television series, making her an anomaly on the small screen, which until that time had rarely depicted Black women in anything other than subservient roles.In a November 1968 episode, during the show’s third and final season, Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura are forced to embrace by the inhabitants of a strange planet, resulting in what is widely thought to be the first interracial kiss in television history.Ms. Nichols’s first appearances on “Star Trek” predated the 1968 sitcom “Julia,” in which Diahann Carroll, playing a widowed mother who works as a nurse, became the first Black woman to star in a non-stereotypical role in a network series.Ms. Nichols and William Shatner on “Star Trek,” sharing what is believed to be the first interracial kiss on television.CBS via Getty Images(A series called “Beulah,” also called “The Beulah Show,” starring Ethel Waters — and later Louise Beavers and Hattie McDaniel — as the maid for a white family, was broadcast on ABC in the early 1950s and subsequently cited by civil rights activists for its demeaning portraits of Black people.)But Uhura’s influence reached far beyond television. In 1977, Ms. Nichols began an association with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, contracting as a representative and speaker to help recruit female and minority candidates for spaceflight training; the following year’s class of astronaut candidates was the first to include women and members of minority groups.In subsequent years, Ms. Nichols made public appearances and recorded public service announcements on behalf of the agency. In 2012, after she was the keynote speaker at the Goddard Space Center during a celebration of African American History Month, a NASA news release about the event lauded her help for the cause of diversity in space exploration.“Nichols’s role as one of television’s first Black characters to be more than just a stereotype and one of the first women in a position of authority (she was fourth in command of the Enterprise) inspired thousands of applications from women and minorities,” the release said. “Among them: Ronald McNair, Frederick Gregory, Judith Resnick, first American woman in space Sally Ride and current NASA administrator Charlie Bolden.”Grace Dell Nichols was born in Robbins, Ill., on Dec. 28, 1932 (some sources give a later year), and grew up in Chicago. Her father was, for a time, the mayor of Robbins, and a chemist. At 13 or 14, tired of being called Gracie by her friends, she requested a different name from her mother, who liked Michelle but suggested Nichelle for the alliteration.She was a ballet dancer as a child and had a singing voice with a naturally wide range — more than four octaves, she later said. While attending Englewood High School, she landed her first professional gig in a revue at the College Inn, a well-known Chicago nightspot.There she was seen by Duke Ellington, who employed her a year or two later with his touring orchestra as a dancer in one of his jazz suites.Ms. Nichols appeared in several musical theater productions around the country during the 1950s. In an interview with the Archive of American Television, she recalled performing at the Playboy Club in New York City while serving as an understudy for Ms. Carroll in the Broadway musical “No Strings” (though she never went on).In 1959, she was a dancer in Otto Preminger’s film version of “Porgy and Bess.” She made her television debut in 1963 in an episode of “The Lieutenant,” a short-lived dramatic series about Marines at Camp Pendleton created by Gene Roddenberry, who went on to create “Star Trek.”Ms. Nichols appeared on other television shows over the years — among them “Peyton Place” (1966), “Head of the Class” (1988) and “Heroes” (2007). She also appeared onstage occasionally in Los Angeles, including in a one-woman show in which she did impressions of, and paid homage to, Black female entertainers who preceded her, including Lena Horne, Pearl Bailey and Eartha Kitt.At the 15th annual “Star Trek” convention in Las Vegas in 2016, Ms. Nichols was the subject of a panel titled “Tribute to Nichelle Nichols.” Gabe Ginsberg/Getty ImagesBut Uhura was to be her legacy: A decade after “Star Trek” went off the air, Ms. Nichols reprised the role in “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” and she appeared as Uhura, by then a commander, in five subsequent movie sequels through 1991.Besides a son, her survivors include two sisters, Marian Smothers and Diane Robinson.Ms. Nichols was married and divorced twice. In her 1995 autobiography, “Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories,” she disclosed that she and Roddenberry, who died in 1991, had been romantically involved for a time. In an interview in 2010 for the Archive of American Television, she said that he had little to do with her casting in “Star Trek” but that he defended her when studio executives wanted to replace her.When she took the role of Uhura, Ms. Nichols said, she thought of it as a mere job at the time, valuable as a résumé enhancer; she fully intended to return to the stage, as she wanted a career on Broadway. Indeed, she threatened to leave the show after its first season and submitted her resignation to Roddenberry. He told her to think it over for a few days.In a story she often told, that Saturday night she was a guest at an event in Beverly Hills, Calif. — “I believe it was an N.A.A.C.P. fund-raiser,” she recalled in the Archive interview — where the organizer introduced her to someone he described as “your biggest fan.”“He’s desperate to meet you,” she recalled the organizer saying.The fan, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., introduced himself.“He said, ‘We admire you greatly, you know,’ ” Ms. Nichols said, and she thanked him and told him that she was about to leave the show. “He said, ‘You cannot. You cannot.’”Dr. King told her that her role as a dignified, authoritative figure in a popular show was too important to the cause of civil rights for her to forgo. As Ms. Nichols recalled it, he said, “For the first time, we will be seen on television the way we should be seen every day.”On Monday morning, she returned to Roddenberry’s office and told him what had happened.“And I said, ‘If you still want me to stay, I’ll stay. I have to.’”Eduardo Medina contributed reporting. More

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      In a Blue Origin Rocket, William Shatner Finally Goes to Space

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      The actor who played Captain Kirk played the role of pitchman for Jeff Bezos’ spaceflight company at a time that it is facing a number of workplace and business difficulties.NEAR VAN HORN, TEXAS — William Shatner, the actor best known as the heroic Captain James T. Kirk in “Star Trek,” and three other passengers returned safely from a brief trip to the edge of space on Wednesday.Mr. Shatner, 90, became the world’s oldest space traveler on the flight, which was the latest excursion over the West Texas desert aboard a rocket built by Blue Origin for space tourists. The private space company is owned by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and one of the wealthiest men on the planet.It was the sixth launch carrying private passengers this year, as billionaire-backed companies jockey to normalize launching humans to space. Carrying two paying passengers, the quick jaunt to space also checked off another revenue-generating flight for Blue Origin’s space tourism business, advancing competition with Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic to attract more wealthy and adventure-seeking customers.But the successful flight and landing came amid a string of controversies for Mr. Bezos’ company, particularly charges from current and former employees that its workplace culture was “rife” with sexism and that it prioritized speed over addressing some employees’ safety concerns. The company has rebutted the criticisms, but has also faced setbacks in other lines of its business.The actor who played Captain Kirk in “Star Trek” told Jeff Bezos his visit to the edge of space in the Blue Origin rocket was the most profound experience he could imagine.Blue Origin, via EPA, via ShutterstockThose concerns were absent on Wednesday as an effusive Mr. Shatner bent Mr. Bezos’ ear just outside the capsule after it landed, pouring forth words during a video livestream to describe his brief trek into the limits of the planet’s atmosphere. His trip aboard the rocket might have been conceived as a publicity stunt, but brushing the edge of the sky left the actor full of wonder, mixed with unease.“What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine,” Mr. Shatner told Mr. Bezos, waxing poetically about the “immeasurably small” line he witnessed between Earth and space, describing it as a fragile, underappreciated boundary between life and death.“This air which is keeping us alive is thinner than your skin,” he continued, adding: “it would be so important for everybody to have that experience, through one means or another.”The Origin New Shepard rocket rising from the launch site on Wednesday.LM Otero/Associated PressSpectators watched the New Shepard rocket carrying Mr. Shatner to the edge of space.Mario Tama/Getty ImagesMr. Bezos, who has said he was inspired by “Star Trek” as a boy, listened, still as a statue. He may have been giving Mr. Shatner some space, but it was a sharp contrast to his appearance after his own brief spaceflight in July, when he was aboard the same spacecraft. Then, Mr. Bezos held forth from a stage, rousing condemnation from critics of the vast company he founded as he thanked Amazon’s employees and customers for making it possible for him to finance his private space venture.Mr. Shatner shared the capsule on Wednesday with three other passengers: Audrey Powers, a Blue Origin vice president who oversees New Shepard operations, and two paying customers: Chris Boshuizen, a co-founder of the Earth-observation company Planet Labs, and Glen de Vries, a co-founder of a company that builds software for clinical researchers.The launch Wednesday morning was pushed back by roughly an hour by two pauses to the launch countdown — caused in part by extra checks to the spacecraft and winds near its launchpad. The quartet was driven in electric pickup trucks to Blue Origin’s launchpad, roughly an hour before liftoff, flanked by Mr. Bezos and company employees.For a moment, it appeared Mr. Bezos, dressed in a flight suit like the one he wore in July, would join them in flying to space. But he closed the hatch door before leaving the pad, sending the crew on their journey.The rocket lifted off at 9:49 a.m. Central time, ascending nearly as fast as a speeding bullet at 2,235 miles per hour and sending the crew some 65.8 miles high. The whole trip lasted 10 minutes, 17 seconds, and gave the four passengers about four minutes of weightlessness.Mr. Boshuizen, talking to reporters after the flight, likened the crew’s entry into space to a stone hitting the surface of a lake. “I was trying to smile but my jaw was pushed back in my head,” he said.Mr. Shatner emerged from the New Shepard capsule after a safe landing near Van Horn, Texas, on Wednesday. Blue Origin, via EPA, via ShutterstockIn the “Star Trek” episode, “A Piece of the Action,” William Shatner as Captain Kirk appears with DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard McCoy, center, and Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock, right, in 1968.CBS via Getty ImagesMr. de Vries said the crew “had a moment of camaraderie” when they reached space. “We actually just put our hands together,” he said.“And then we enjoyed the view as much as we can,” Mr. de Vries said.In video footage released later by Blue Origin, Mr. Shatner appeared nearly speechless as the crew floated inside the capsule, legs aloft and small toys wafting around. “This is nuts,” said Ms. Powers, gripping the frame of one of the capsule’s windows.Footage captured the 90-year-old “Star Trek” actor and three other passengers floating weightless inside the Blue Origin spacecraft capsule during their trip to the edge of space.Blue OriginThe capsule then descended back to land under a set of three parachutes.Mr. Shatner wasn’t thrilled about his new status as the oldest person to fly into space. “I wish I had broken the world record in the 10-yard dash, but unfortunately it was how old I was,” he said hours after the mission during a news conference on the landing pad. He beat the record recently clinched during Blue Origin’s first crewed flight in July by Wally Funk, an 82-year-old pilot and former candidate for NASA’s astronaut corps who was turned down from joining in the 60s because of her sex.Like Blue Origin’s July trip, in which Mr. Bezos launched to space with Ms. Funk and two other passengers, Wednesday’s flight served as an advertisement of the company’s space tourism business to prospective wealthy customers. It is competing primarily with Virgin Galactic, a rival space company founded by Richard Branson, the British businessman.Virgin Galactic’s suborbital ship is a space plane that takes off from a runway like a commercial airliner. It tops out at a lower altitude. The company sent Mr. Branson and three company employees to the edge of space in July aboard SpaceShipTwo, nine days before Mr. Bezos’ flight.Blue Origin has declined to publicly state a price for a ticket to fly on New Shepard. The company is nearing $100 million in sales so far, Mr. Bezos had said in July. But it’s unclear how many ticket holders that includes.Tickets on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo were hiked to $450,000 in August, from $250,000, when the company reopened ticket sales after a yearslong hiatus. And flights to orbit — a much higher altitude than Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic’s trips go — are far more expensive. Three passengers going to the International Space Station next year are paying $55 million each for their seats on a SpaceX rocket, bought through the company Axiom Space.An illustration of the proposed SpaceX Starship human lander on the moon.SpaceXVirgin Galactic’s passenger rocket plane VSS Unity, carrying Richard Branson and crew, beginning its ascent to the edge of space above New Mexico in July.Virgin Galactic, via ReutersBut space tourism is not Blue Origin’s only business, nor its only challenge. Earlier this year, the company lost out to SpaceX, the rival rocket company owned by the billionaire Elon Musk, for a lucrative NASA contract to land humans on the moon. The company is currently challenging the award to SpaceX in federal court, and may receive a ruling in November.Mr. Bezos’ company is also attempting to overcome technical hurdles in its effort to finish building its much bigger rocket, New Glenn, as well as that rocket’s engines, which are to be relied on by a competitor, United Launch Alliance, to fly NASA and Pentagon hardware on its rockets.Its most immediate challenge has concerned accusations that the company’s work culture allowed harassment and sexist behavior. In September, Alexandra Abrams, the former head of employee communications at Blue Origin, published an essay with 20 unnamed current and former employees of the company outlining those charges, as well as accusations that internal safety concerns were often dismissed by management.“Even if there are absolutely zero issues with all of Blue’s programs, which is absolutely not the case, a toxic culture bursting with schedule pressure and untrustworthy leaders breeds and encourages failures and mistakes each and every day,” Ms. Abrams said this week.Blue Origin disputed the allegations in the essay, saying in a statement that the company has an internal hotline for sexual harassment complaints. And on Wednesday’s livestream of the launch, Ariane Cornell, Blue Origin’s astronaut sales director, emphasized the company’s safety record, saying “safety has been baked into the design of New Shepard from day one.”On Wednesday after the flight, Mr. Shatner also brought up New Shepard’s safety.“I think, just generally, the press needs to know how safe this was,” he said, adding “the technology is very safe, the approach was safe, the training was safe and everything went according to exactly what they predicted. We even waited for the winds an extra half-hour.”But asked by reporters if he would launch to space again, he said, “I am so filled with such an emotion, I don’t want to dissipate it by thinking of another journey.”Floating back to the west Texas desert after a successful mission.LM Otero/Associated PressDavid Streitfeld and Daniel E. Slotnik contributed reporting. More

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      Many 'Star Trek' Fans Are Eager to See William Shatner Go to Space

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      The voyages of Captain James T. Kirk and the starship Enterprise in the 1960s created a fandom that has expanded exponentially over the decades, much like the cute but deadly tribbles of the original “Star Trek” television series. Now many “Trek” fans are excited as William Shatner, the man who embodies that role, readies himself to venture into space — for real.“I think this is fantastic for the ‘Star Trek’ mythos, to have the guy who really started it all to go into space,” said Russ Haslage, who co-founded the fan organization The Federation, also known as the International Federation of Trekkers, with Gene Roddenberry, the creator of “Star Trek,” in the 1980s.Through the lens of “Star Trek,” human space travel has typically had a rosy tint. Much of the show’s universe takes place hundreds of years in the future, with humanity venturing into the Milky Way after surviving a brutal 21st century. Homo sapiens expand from our solar system under the flag of United Earth, a founding member of the United Federation of Planets, an egalitarian alliance of intelligent species. That vision, started in Mr. Roddenberry’s original TV series, is a culmination of the events set in motion by Yuri Gagarin in 1961, when he became the first human to travel to space.Captain Kirk is arguably the most extreme incarnation of the show’s high-minded, moralistic vision.“He’s the guy who’s at the center of all of this,” said Mr. Haslage, who’s planning to offer live commentary on the launch’s livestream via The Federation’s YouTube and Facebook pages. “There wouldn’t be any of this without Captain Kirk.”Carly Creer, a moderator for a “Star Trek” Facebook group with over 150,000 members, grew up watching the original series with her father. Mr. Shatner is a regular at an annual “Star Trek” convention in Las Vegas that she often attends.“If we didn’t have Captain Kirk and that awesome force that he created, we wouldn’t have the amazing fandom that we’ve got,” Ms. Creer said.The involvement of billionaires like Jeff Bezos selling private spaceflight experiences to wealthy customers has generated considerable criticism. But among fans like Ms. Creer there is a fascination with what both NASA and private companies are working to accomplish.“I’ve really appreciated how SpaceX and Blue Origin have stepped in,” she said. “I really think it’s just amazing. It’s been so wonderful to watch, because as a fan of ‘Star Trek’ all you want is to see that future that Gene Roddenberry created so well.” More

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      William Shatner's Star Trek Moment With Jeff Bezos

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      A half-century ago, a television show told young people that space travel would be the coolest thing ever. Some of them were even inspired to work toward that goal. Science fiction met reality on Wednesday as one of those fans, now one of the richest people in the world, gave the show’s leading actor a brief ride up into the ether.The mission went according to plan. The aftermath appeared unscripted, and all the better for it.William Shatner, eternally famous as Captain James T. Kirk on the original “Star Trek,” returned to Earth apparently moved by the experience beyond measure. His trip aboard Jeff Bezos’ rocket might have been conceived as a publicity stunt, but brushing the edge of the sky left the actor full of wonder mixed with unease:It was unbelievable … To see the blue cover go whoop by. And now you’re staring into blackness. That’s the thing. The covering of blue, this sheet, this blanket, this comforter of blue that we have around us. We say, ‘Oh that’s blue sky.’ And then suddenly you shoot through it and all of a sudden, like you whip the sheet off you when you’re asleep, you’re looking into blackness.Mr. Shatner was talking to Mr. Bezos immediately after exiting the capsule with the three other passengers. The others greeted their family and friends. Champagne corks popped. There was lots of laughter, high-spirited relief. But Mr. Shatner, a hale 90 standing in the West Texas dust, talked about space as the final frontier:You look down, there’s the blue down there, and the black up there. There is Mother and Earth and comfort and there is … Is there death? I don’t know. Was that death? Is that the way death is? Whoop and it’s gone. Jesus. It was so moving to me.Mr. Bezos listened, still as a statue. Maybe he was just giving Mr. Shatner some space, but it was a sharp contrast to his appearance after his own brief spaceflight in July when he flew the same spacecraft as Mr. Shatner. Then, he held forth from a stage, rousing condemnation from critics of the vast company he founded as he thanked Amazon’s employees and customers for making it possible for him to finance his private space venture.Or maybe Mr. Bezos was just acting naturally. His role model has always been the cool, passionless Mr. Spock rather than the emotional, impulsive Captain Kirk. Amazon, which prizes efficiency above all, was conceived and runs on this notion.When he played at “Star Trek” as a boy, Mr. Bezos has said, he would sometimes take the role of the ship’s computer. Amazon’s voice-activated speaker Alexa was designed as a household version of the “Star Trek” computer, which always had the answer to every question.The word “death,” repeatedly mentioned by Mr. Shatner in his post-flight monologue, is rarely thought of as a selling word for space tourism, which is after all what Blue Origin is promoting. But the actor did supply a positive endorsement.“Everybody in the world needs to do this,” he said. More

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      William Shatner Will Launch to Space on Next Blue Origin Flight

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      It’s only the edge of space, but the man who played the “Star Trek” captain is heading there with three other people for Blue Origin’s second flight with passengers.He’s boldly going where Jeff Bezos has gone before.William Shatner, known best from his years as the U.S.S. Enterprise’s Captain James T. Kirk in the “Star Trek” TV and film series, will launch to the edge of space this month aboard New Shepard. That is the tourist rocket built by Blue Origin, the private space company owned by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.“So now I can say something. Yes, it’s true; I’m going to be a ‘rocket man!’,” Mr. Shatner wrote on Twitter about the news.So now I can say something. Yes, it’s true; I’m going to be a “rocket man!” 😝🤣 https://t.co/B2jFeXrr6L— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) October 4, 2021
      The news was reported on the website TMZ in September and confirmed on Monday by the company.Mr. Shatner, 90, will become the oldest person to fly to space once he completes the flight.The flight is scheduled for Oct. 12, and Mr. Shatner will be joined by two other paying customers: Chris Boshuizen, a co-founder of the satellite imagery firm Planet Labs, and Glen de Vries, a co-founder of the clinical research software Medidata. The mission’s fourth passenger will be Audrey Powers, a Blue Origin vice president.The company launched its first crew of passengers to space in July. The crew for that mission included Mr. Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos, Wally Funk, 82, a pilot who was denied a chance to become an astronaut in the 1960s because of her sex, and an 18-year-old Dutch student. Ms. Funk, 82, currently holds the record as oldest passenger to space.From Blue Origin’s pad in West Texas, the 16-story-tall rocket will launch to an altitude of roughly 63 miles and release its gumdrop-shaped crew capsule. Passengers experience about four minutes of weightlessness in microgravity. The New Shepard booster will return to Earth for a vertical landing a few miles from where it launched, while the crew capsule will fall back minutes later under a set of parachutes.The flight will not reach orbit, which requires a much more powerful rocket lifting a spacecraft to a much higher altitude.The New Shepard rocket taking off from Launch Site 1 near Van Horn, Texas, in July.Joe Skipper/ReutersBlue Origin’s New Shepard vehicle is the centerpiece of its space tourism business, and Mr. Bezos has said it has over $100 million worth of tickets booked already. The company hasn’t disclosed ticket prices, booking the seats privately instead. Virgin Galactic, the company’s rival in space tourism, sells seats aboard its suborbital space plane starting at $450,000.The mission will come during a hectic time for Blue Origin. Last week, 21 current and former employees said in an essay that the company was rife with sexism and dismissive of employees who spoke up on issues of safety concerning the New Shepard rocket. Blue Origin disputed the allegations, saying the company had an internal hotline for sexual harassment complaints and that New Shepard was the “safest space vehicle ever designed or built.”Mr. de Vries, one of the passengers who will join Mr. Shatner atop New Shepard, said last week that he wasn’t worried about the contents of the essay. “I am confident in Blue Origin’s safety program, spacecraft, and track record, and certainly wouldn’t be flying with them if I wasn’t,” he said last week.The company has other challenges, including sparring with NASA in federal court after losing a major contract to SpaceX, the company founded by Elon Musk, to build a lander to return astronauts to the moon. Development of an engine that will power bigger rockets, including one that was built by the Boeing-Lockheed Martin venture United Launch Alliance, is roughly a year behind schedule.New Shepard is one of a handful of spacecraft offering rides to space for wealthy passengers in the emerging space tourism industry. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, developed primarily to fly government astronauts to the International Space Station, flew its first private crew of tourists in September and has more private missions lined up for next year. Virgin Galactic, which flew its founder, Richard Branson, and other passengers to space in July, plans to open its commercial space tourism business next year, chipping away at a backlog of some 600 ticket holders. Its next flight, with Italian Air Force officers and researchers aboard, is expected to occur this month. More

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      ‘Senior Moment’ Review: A Romance That Wouldn’t Hurt a Flea

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      This Giorgio Serafini movie takes us to a retirement center, a drag race and the DMV, not to mention a dizzying encounter on public transportation.There are many here among us for whom the prospect of spending 90 minutes in the presence of William Shatner would be unalloyed bliss. The world is a funny place. In any event, for them, “Senior Moment,” a romantic comedy, will be, well, unalloyed bliss.Shatner plays, in the consistently bemused fashion that’s become a hallmark of his performances, a character compelled to go where no man he has played has gone before: the DMV.The “Star Trek” legend here incarnates Victor Martin, a former test pilot living his retirement dream in Palm Springs, tooling around in a silver Porsche. In this vehicle he gives his best friend, Sal (Christopher Lloyd), rides to and from a retirement center. He poses for a photo shoot with the car and a young bikini model (Katrina Bowden) whom he imprudently tries to romance. And he scares the devil out of a cafe owner Caroline (Jean Smart) with the car one night, while drag racing against Pablo (Carlos Miranda), a cheerful low rider.That race gets Victor’s license suspended, and his car impounded. While taking the bus, he meets cute with Caroline, and a more age-appropriate affair begins. In reality, Jean Smart is only 20 years younger than Shatner, while Katrina Bowden is well over 50 years younger. Such is Hollywood.Bowden was a regular on the sitcom “30 Rock.” Lloyd created a beloved character on “Taxi.” Smart, among other things, was a fixture on “Designing Women.” So “Senior Moment” presents actors from four significant and still-well-regarded TV shows in a picture that’s significantly less-well-written than any random episode of any of those shows you could name. Giorgio Serafini’s direction is also uninspired. This is the kind of movie that is usually defended with one word: “harmless.”Senior MomentNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. In theaters and on Apple TV, FandangoNow and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters. More