Washington (AFP)

When Star Trek first aired in 1966, Americans had not yet walked on the moon, and the idea that humans could ever live and work in space still seemed a long way off.

On Wednesday, William Shatner, who played the famous Captain Kirk in the iconic series, will be the first actor in the cast to make, for real, the journey to the "frontier of infinity".

He will embark, alongside three other passengers from West Texas, aboard a Blue Origin rocket for a suborbital flight that will be the second manned for the company of billionaire Jeff Bezos.

An event that will delight fans of this pop culture phenomenon, which has inspired generations of astronauts.

Take-off, initially scheduled for Tuesday, October 12, was postponed by one day due to the weather.

"I plan to keep my nose glued to the window. All I don't want to see is a gremlin looking at me from the other side," the Canadian actor joked in a video posted by Blue Origin.

At 90, he will become the oldest person to reach space.

Blue Origin's decision to invite one of the most iconic sci-fi space travelers is not innocent: it should help maintain public interest in the race between several private companies in the sector.

In July, British billionaire Richard Branson flew aboard a Virgin Galactic ship, just days before Jeff Bezos, on the first manned flight of the New Shepard rocket - the same that will embark William Shatner.

SpaceX for its part sent four space tourists for three days in orbit around the Earth in September, a mission which was the subject of a Netflix series.

"Taking a celebrity like William Shatner, who is linked to space, brings a kind of revival and creates media attention," Joe Czabovsky, a public relations expert at the University of North Carolina, told AFP .

- Pioneer series -

The original Star Trek series was discontinued after three seasons, but sequels and over a dozen films subsequently fueled the phenomenon.

Captain Kirk was in command of a five-year mission to "explore strange new worlds, discover new lives, other civilizations".

His real trip into space will last much shorter: about ten minutes in total, of which about four in zero gravity.

The spacecraft goes just above the Karman Line, which marks the border of space at an altitude of 100 km according to the international convention.

The Star Trek series had turned America's attention to the conquest of space, then in its infancy, while also tackling societal issues.

The cast was very diverse, at a time when America was in the midst of the civil rights movement.

In 1968, when William Shatner and African-American actress Nichelle Nichols kissed, it was the first kiss between a white person and a person of color on American television.

- Space conquest -

The series is also very much linked to the American space program.

NASA's first space shuttle was named "Enterprise", after the spacecraft commanded by Captain Kirk.

In the 1970s, Nichelle Nichols made a video to help NASA recruit astronauts, especially women and minorities.

Other actors have participated in conferences of the American agency or lent their voice for documentaries.

"For 50 years, Star Trek has inspired generations of scientists, engineers and even astronauts," said American astronaut Victor Glover in 2016, in a documentary examining the parallels between the research carried out in the series and those carried out today aboard the International Space Station.

Another famous Star Trek fan?

Jeff Bezos himself.

For example, he explained how Alexa, Amazon's voice assistant, was inspired by the Star Trek computer.

The billionaire even appeared, unrecognizable under alien makeup, in one of the films: "Star Trek Without Limit" (2016).

William Shatner's fame, as well as his jokes - he said in an interview with CNN that the New Shepard rocket, often mocked for its phallic appearance, "inseminated the space program" - is also a welcome diversion for Blue Origin.

The company is accused by some employees - former and current - of maintaining a "toxic" work environment, where sexism is omnipresent.

In a text published online at the end of September, these employees denounced a lack of personnel, resources and extreme pressure to reduce costs and delays, affecting flight safety.

Blue Origin has denied these allegations.

© 2021 AFP