Captain Kirk’s real-life trip into space has been delayed.

William Shatner – best known for playing the Star Trek stalwart – was due to be beamed up on Tuesday in Jeff Bezos‘s NS-18 spacecraft.

But the Amazon founder’s space company – Blue Origin – has delayed for 24 hours because of “forecasted winds”.

When the 90-year-old actor does finally lift off from west Texas, he will become the oldest person ever to go into space.

The NS-18 will reach a height of 66 miles (106km), in a journey lasting just 10 minutes. It will be a suborbital trip, meaning the craft will reach outer space, but not space itself.

Shatner sounds excited at the prospect, saying: “I’ve heard about space for a long time now. I’m taking the opportunity to see it for myself. What a miracle.”

While Shatner will be a guest of Blue Origin, the company says it has sold almost $100m (£73m) in tickets to paying customers.

William Shatner: Star Trek actor, 90, to blast off into space next week

Jeff Bezos might scupper NASA’s 2024 moon landing – if spacesuit delays don’t do it first

Bezos’s Blue Origin sues US government over NASA’s decision to give lunar lander contract to SpaceX

After a successful flight in July, Bezos said it was the “best day ever”.

Shatner will be part of a four-person crew, and will be joined by Audrey Powers, who has played an instrumental role in the years-long process to get Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket cleared for human flight.

Chris Boshuizen and Glen de Vries – two paying customers – will also be onboard.

If Shatner is feeling disappointed by the delay, he could do worse than listen to his fictional successor, Captain Jean-Luc Picard, who said: “Things are only impossible until they’re not.”

Related posts:

New Venus mission aims to unlock mysteries of ‘Earth’s twin’ What is the new COVID antibody cocktail treatment – and could it be the next weapon against the virus? Google fined £427m in fight with French news publishers Teen in space! Dutch student to be youngest person to ever to leave earth’s atmosphere Social media bosses should face jail over worst content, says police watchdog chief Second outage in a week on Facebook and Instagram as some users lose access Facial recognition used to take payments from school children NASA telescope discovers first possible planet outside of Milky Way galaxy International Space Station being forced to swerve to avoid Chinese satellite junk Apple pushes return to office plans back to February El Salvador aims to build ‘Bitcoin City’ at base of a volcano Priti Patel’s fast-track visa scheme for scientists has attracted zero applicants