To oldly go where no man has gone before.

William Shatner (as Capt. Kirk of the USS Enterprise) heads to space today.

At 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, two worlds will collide.

That’s when a sub-orbital spaceship will launch from the west Texas launch center of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin  commercial space flight program with four passengers aboard — including one that may be the most famous of all spacefaring humans (or at least those that have portrayed spacefaring humans). 

William Shatner, the Canadian-born actor that turned the character of James Tiberius Kirk into American science-fiction royalty, will be aboard that spacecraft when it launches for a flight that will include about 15 minutes on the edge of outer space. At 90, he will be the oldest human being to fly into space — some 65 years after the debut of the groundbreaking series “Star Trek” on NBC, and 27 years after he last portrayed the captain of the starship Enterprise on the silver screen.

Amazing? Indeed. As I said, Shatner is 90. The oldest man NASA dared to send into space was former astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn, who flew America’s first orbital flight in 1962 and returned to space aboard the shuttle Discovery in 1998 at the age of 77. Bezos’ privately-run program began by setting a record for “experience” by sending up 82-year-old former NASA engineer Wally Funk, who had been passed over for a flight in the Mercury program simply because she was a woman.

Shatner is still quite strapping for a man his age, but he won’t need to tell anyone to go to warp speed during his brief flight. No one aboard will need to lift a finger, in fact; Bezos’ spacecraft are completely controlled from the ground — which, as older readers will remember, was the cause of a near-revolt among the original Mercury astronauts. They were all test pilots from the military, and they rebelled at the notion of being simply passengers aboard a craft over which they had no control. As a result, NASA scientists re-designed the Mercury capsule to include controls over steering thrusters and the  re-entry rocket.

Be that as it may, while this may seem like a publicity stunt of the highest order, it’s still intriguing that the opportunity has been presented to the earth’s most famous starship captain to actually see a tiny portion of what he was bringing to our small screens for three seasons and then several movies many years later. 

Shatner was already an accomplished actor before Star Trek. He portrayed a military aide to one of the chief prosecutors (played by Spencer Tracy) at the postwar Nuremberg trials in “Judgment at Nuremberg” — the prime irony being that Shatner’s character carried the rank of captain. Shatner also had several roles on episodic TV shows in the ‘60s, including “Route 66” and “Twilight Zone,” in which he was able to develop the overacting technique that would be his trademark going forward. Perhaps that’s what Gene Roddenberry saw when he needed to recast his Star Trek pilot and replace a less emotive Jeffrey Hunter (as Capt. Christopher Pike, whose command of the Enterprise prior to James Kirk is gaining new life in newer iterations of the Star Trek franchise) with a more swashbuckling actor that would bring an emotional edge to the captain’s chair.

Even if you’re not a fan of Star Trek, you know who Capt. Kirk is. He’s bold, daring, and far too emotional for the taste of his logic-driven Vulcan first officer, Mr. Spock. He rushes into conflict while touting the peace-loving virtues of the United Federation of Planets. He frequently cites the Federation’s one unbreakable “Prime Directive,” the order not to interfere with the development of lesser-developed civilizations, then promptly violates it as the situation demands. And of course, Kirk is a randy soul whose libido explored what the galaxy had to offer in regards to the opposite sex almost more extensively than the Enterprise explored new solar systems.

The character of Kirk was developed early in the original series and rarely strayed off that course over the three seasons on NBC, the brief animated series that followed (although cleaned up a little for the younger audiences), and then seven theatrical films featuring the original cast. And that’s what made him an endearing and enduring character.

How much of the character of Kirk really was the real Shatner? Or how much has Shatner become Kirk? We may never know. But he clearly is reveling in the moment of an opportunity that is uniquely his. Given the place that Star Trek and its successor series hold in American lore, it’s just a shame that Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan and the surviving members of the original cast couldn’t join him on this symbolic mission.

Here’s hoping that Shatner’s trip goes as planned, and it provides him with the thrill of a well-lived lifetime. But I can’t help but think back to one of the movies, “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock,” for a fitting description.

It’s just moments before Kirk, Scotty, Sulu, Chekov and McCoy board the dry-docked Enterprise against orders, preparing to reactivate the ship in order to return to the Genesis planet and search for Spock’s mortal remains. The crew escapes Starfleet headquarters in San Francisco via a little-used transporter facility where Lt. Uhura has accepted a posting as part of the plot to steal the Enterprise. As the bridge crew arrives, a junior officer on duty with Uhura is suspicious of their arrival, so Uhura draws a phaser and orders the ensign into a closet. Shocked, he says, “Have you lost all sense of reality?” 

“This isn’t reality,” Uhura responds. “This is fantasy!”

Indeed it is. Godspeed, Jim Kirk.