William Shatner has a new book out about his life called Boldly Go. He came on The Bobby Bones Show to talk about it and his adventure to space in real life.
Boldy Go is about the adventure of life, Shatner's specifically. He hopes that people takeaway the importance of connection to nature and other people. If people are more fans of listening to books, he also recorded the audio book for this one. Shatner believes the secret to living a long fulfilled life is doing things and facing the adventure life has to offer.
One of Shatner's friends suggested he should up on the first voyager to space with Jeff Bezos. The idea got promoted and he was sent up to Seattle where he met with Bezos. There they talked about the idea of Shatner going on Bezos' first rocket to space. Unfortunately that was also around the time COVID first hit. After a year went by, Shatner found out Bezos was going to take another team up of some special individuals. His friend suggested Shatner still go up, it would just have to be on the second rocket. Initially, Shatner only wanted to go on the first rocket. However, he realized that he was avoiding a space adventure and decided to go up on the second rocket to space with Bezos' company. There were two things that made Shatner very nervous - the hydrogen burning and when the countdown stopped for someone to fix an issue. He thought about bailing out of the mission, but then quickly realized he couldn't do that since he's Captain Kirk. He was so amazed by everything he saw, adding that there isn't a way for him to describe it yet since only a handful of people have experienced the same things. Though he noted "weightlessness" wasn't really the word he would use to describe the experience. As soon as he could, he got to a window so that he could see everything from their rocket perspective.
In talking about meeting celebrities, Shatner shared he did meet Elvis Presley. However, it was a disappointing encounter as nothing really happened between them. Shatner said Presley just "stood there in his radiant beauty" while wearing his white costume. Shatner believes Presley wasn't even aware he was there at the time.