The Blue Origin capsule with four passengers on board, including William Shatner who played Captain Kirk in the cult Star Trek series, made a trip of a few minutes into space on Wednesday. She then landed in West Texas.
The Canadian actor has become at 90 years the oldest person to reach the last frontier. It was the second manned rocket flight of the company of billionaire Jeff Bezos, which intends to establish itself as a key player in the coveted space tourism sector. On board were also two entrepreneurs who paid for the trip, and a manager from Blue Origin.
The founder of Amazon was present on site Wednesday morning. He had shaken hands with each of the passengers before they boarded the rocket, named New Shepard, and had himself closed the capsule hatch. Jeff Bezos also made the trip.
The rocket took off vertically on Wednesday, then the capsule broke off in flight, and thus propelled, passed the Karman line which marks, at an altitude of 100 km, the border of space according to the international convention.
It then began a free fall to fall back to Earth, slowed down in particular by three huge parachutes. The flight lasted only about ten minutes.
Star Trek, broadcast from 1966 for only three seasons, chronicled the adventures of the USS Enterprise spacecraft, launched on an interstellar exploration mission. The series has become cult for science fiction enthusiasts, including Jeff Bezos.
Released at the time of the beginnings of the space conquest, before the Americans set foot on the Moon, it had also helped to arouse the interest of the nation - and the world - for the NASA program.