Amazon founder Jeff Bezos revealed to William Shatner that his childhood love of “Star Trek” directly inspired him to create Blue Origin and pursue space travel. Shatner, who was launched into space by Blue Origin in 2021, shares this anecdote in his new memoir.
Bezos discovered “Star Trek” in 1974 while living in a suburb of Houston. He and his friends, Dean and Kyle, would rush home from school to watch reruns of the show. “The idea that there could be this shining future was so appealing,” Bezos told Shatner.
The influence of “Star Trek” extended beyond simply watching the show. Bezos, along with his friends, would role-play scenes from the series in his backyard, using lawn chairs to simulate the bridge of the USS Enterprise.
Bezos’s admiration for the science fiction series is also reflected in the naming of several ventures. His dog is named Kamala, after the Famke Janssen character in the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episode “The Perfect Mate.” The lobby of Blue Origin’s Seattle headquarters displays a studio model of the movie-era USS Enterprise, and his management company is named Zephram LLC, after Zephram Cochrane, the inventor of warp drive.
Shatner, who documented his own emotional experience aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket in his previous book, “Boldly Go,” expressed gratitude for the opportunity and hopes Bezos’s vision of launching polluting industries into space to repair environmental damage will be realized. He described looking down on Earth from space as a profoundly moving experience, realizing the fragility of life on the planet.
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