AFP UK

It’s no secret that beer and cheese go hand in hand — but a new study reveals how deep their roots run in Europe, where workers at a salt mine in Austria were gorging on both up to 2,700 years ago.

Scientists made the discovery by analyzing samples of human excrement found at the heart of the Hallstatt mine in the Austrian Alps. The study was published in the journal Current Biology on Wednesday.

Frank Maixner, a microbiologist at the Eurac Research Institute in Bolzano, Italy, who was the lead author of the report, said he was surprised to learn that salt miners more than two millennia ago were advanced enough to “use fermentation intentionally.”

“This is very sophisticated in my opinion,” Maixner told AFP. “This is something I did not expect at that time.”

The finding was the earliest evidence to date of cheese ripening in Europe, according to researchers.

And while alcohol consumption is certainly well documented in older writings and archaeological evidence, the salt miners’ feces contained the first molecular evidence of beer consumption on the continent at that time.

“It is becoming increasingly clear that not only were prehistoric culinary practices sophisticated, but also that complex processed foodstuffs as well as the technique of fermentation have held a prominent role in our early food history,” said Kerstin Kowarik of the Museum of Natural History Vienna.

– ‘A very particular place’ –

The town of Hallstatt, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has been used for salt production for more than 3,000 years. 

The community “is a very particular place, it’s located in the Alps, in the middle of nowhere,” he explained. “The whole community worked and lived from this mine.”

The miners spent their entire days there, working, eating and going to the bathroom in the mine.

It is thanks to the constant temperature of around 8C (46F) and the high concentration of salt at the mine that the miners’ feces were preserved particularly well. 

Researchers analyzed four samples: one dating back to the Bronze Age, two from the Iron Age and one from the 18th century.

One of them, about 2,700 years old, was found to contain two fungi, Penicillium roqueforti and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Both are known today for their use in food making.

“The Hallstatt miners seem to have intentionally applied food fermentation technologies with microorganisms which are still nowadays used in the food industry,” Maixner said.

– A balanced diet –

The researchers also studied the miners’ diet, which consisted mainly of cereals, some fruit, and beans and meats as the source of protein.

“The diet was exactly what these miners needed, in my opinion,” Maixner said. “It’s clearly balanced and you have all major components you need.”

The main difference with today’s menus is the degree of food processing, which was very low at the time. The Bronze and Iron Age miners used whole grains, suggesting the consumption of some kind of porridge. For the 18th-century miners, the grains appeared ground, indicating they ate bread or cookies.

One of the study’s other findings was the composition of the miners’ microbiota, or the set of bacteria present in their bodies.

In the four samples studied, the microbiota were very similar to that of modern non-Western populations, which tend to have a more traditional lifestyle.

This suggests a “recent shift” in the microbiota of industrialized humans, “probably due to modern lifestyle, diet, or medical advances,” the study said.

However, microbiota are often linked to different modern diseases, Maixner said. According to him, determining when exactly this change occurred could help scientists understand what caused it.

Marc Van Ranst, a virologist famous in Belgium for providing expertise about the Covid-19 pandemic, was at home for his first afternoon off in months in May, unaware that his life was under threat and that he would soon be forced to go into hiding.

Jurgen Conings, a soldier aligned with right-wing extremist movements who had stated his intent to harm Van Ranst was sitting in a car nearby armed with four rocket launchers. 

It wasn’t until the following day Van Ranst learned he was in danger.

“They called me at noon and half an hour later they came with heavily armoured cars,” Van Ranst told AFP. 

“They took my son from school and my wife from the hospital and me… to a safe house. We were in several safe houses over the course of about a month.”

Van Ranst has given hundreds of interviews on Covid-19 since the pandemic began and says he has a file of over 150 threats related to his pandemic expertise.

“Some are minor — they compare you to Hitler or Mengele,” he said. “And then some are death threats.” 

He is one of dozens of scientists harassed over the pandemic, according to a survey by scientific journal Nature.

Of 321 experts who responded to the journal, 81 percent reported some experience of “trolling or personal attacks after speaking about Covid-19 in the media”.

Fifteen percent reported receiving death threats and over half had their credibility attacked.

– ‘They find different ways’ –

In its article on the survey, Nature said it reached out to scientists in the US, the UK, Brazil, Canada, Taiwan, New Zealand and Germany who had given interviews about the pandemic. 

The prestigious journal acknowledges that harassment of scientists speaking on hot-button issues such as gun violence, vaccines and climate change is not new.

But they say even experts who were already prominent noted a rise in abuse related to the pandemic. The survey’s respondents described threats by email, online comments, phone calls and more.

French virologist Karine Lacombe rose to prominence during the pandemic for her expertise lent during regular television and radio appearances and in articles. 

She told AFP that attacks on her — largely driven by French right-wing media supportive of controversial doctor Didier Raoult — began in earnest once she spoke out publicly against Raoult’s advice to use hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid.

She describes being insulted in the street, getting anonymous letters threatening rape, and having her inbox flooded with disparaging personal messages.

“It was totally new to me and extremely violent,” she told AFP.

She left Twitter and even spent several days with friends, imagining people might be waiting for her in front of her home.

“I had a kind of breakdown,” she said.

Both Lacombe and Van Ranst report being targeted by right-wing extremists in their countries, which are often aligned against pandemic measures and vaccines.

Van Ranst describes being repeatedly summoned to Belgian court by anti-vaxers.

“They find different ways of harassing us,” Van Ranst said.

He says he makes a point of defending himself at the mandatory court appearances and that he has never lost — but fighting the suits has taken over 400 hours of his time.

“They’re not keeping me from my job but I have literally no free time,” he said, “This is the third one and they said they would keep doing it.”

– ‘They want to silence us’ –

Nature describes a “chilling effect”, with experts who experienced the most harassment also reporting the biggest influence on their willingness to speak to the media.

While Lacombe says she has heard similar feedback from colleagues, that it is not the case for her.

For with support from psychologists and groups fighting bullying and disinformation online, she says she was able to return to Twitter after a month and a half.

“It has reinforced my convictions,” she said.

“They want to silence us, we who have the knowledge and expertise. I’m trying not to give in.”

Van Ranst feels the same.

“I’m not more careful,” he said, “I’m equally outspoken against anti-vaccination messages or fake news or whatever.

“Otherwise they win.”

Pamela made landfall on the western coast of Mexico on Wednesday as a Category One hurricane but weakened to a tropical storm as it moved inland while bringing torrential rain, strong winds and taking down trees and poles.

At 1200 GMT, Pamela crossed on to land about 65 kilometers (40 miles) north of the Pacific port of Mazatlan, in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, with sustained winds of 120 kph (75 mph) and was moving at 22 kph (14 mph), according to data from the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC).

But as it moved over land, Pamela lost strength and was downgraded to a tropical storm with sustained winds of 100 kph, the NHC said.

At 1500 GMT the center of the storm was 140 kilometers from Mazatlan and heading northeast at 37 kph, the NHC added.

Sinaloa was the Mexican state worst affected by the hurricane, which also brought heavy rainfall to neighboring Nayarit and Durango, Mexico’s national water commission said. 

In Mazatlan, home to 500,000 people, Pamela brought down trees and poles, and left some streets submerged with water, an AFP reporter noted.

Sinaloa’s civil protection force published images of rescuers helping residents of affected areas before taking them to shelters.

On Tuesday, 16 US citizens were taken to shelters after being stranded at the local airport when their flights were cancelled due to bad weather.

They are due to remain there until conditions improve, said Eloy Ruiz, the local civil protection coordinator.

Authorities called on residents of rural areas to move to shelters due to the risk of flooding.

In Villa Union, a town of 13,000 people, 25 families living in a high-risk area were taken to shelters, local authorities said.

Sinaloa’s government declared a red alert on Tuesday night in 10 municipalities. Many of those residents rushed to supermarkets to stock up on food and water.

School classes and other activities have been temporarily suspended.

The NHC said heavy rainfall may trigger flash flooding and mudslides as Pamela tracks inland.

Storm surges are expected to produce “significant” coastal flooding and “large and destructive waves,” the center added.

The remnants of Pamela could drench portions of Texas and Oklahoma by late Wednesday and Thursday with the potential for “considerable flash and urban flooding impacts.”

Because of its location, Mexico is often hit by tropical storms and hurricanes on both its Pacific and Atlantic coasts.

In August, Hurricane Nora made landfall in the Pacific state of Jalisco, killing a child and leaving one person missing.

Hurricane Grace left at least 11 dead on the eastern coast of Mexico’s mainland in the same month.

In September, Hurricane Olaf made landfall on the Baja California peninsula, causing minor damage.

There is no prospect of the volcanic eruption in Spain’s Canary Islands ending “in the short or medium term”, experts said Wednesday after three-and-a-half weeks of activity.

At the Cumbre Vieja volcano on La Palma island, “levels of sulphur dioxide don’t currently lead us to think the end of the eruption will be in the short or medium term,” said Maria Jose Blanco, spokesman for the Canaries’ volcanologist group Pevolca.

Other experts have suggested the event could last for weeks or even months.

Beginning on September 19, the latest eruption is the third in a century for La Palma, an island of 85,000 people, after San Juan in 1949 and Teneguia in 1971.

“The volcano’s activity is not stopping and it doesn’t seem that we can expect to observe a reduction in the coming days,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Wednesday, during his fourth visit to the island since the eruption.

So far no-one has been killed by the continuous lava flows, but the molten rock has covered around 640 hectares (1,600 acres) and destroyed 1,400 buildings, 764 of them homes, Pevolca technical director Miguel Angel Morcuende said.

More than 6,000 people have been evacuated, hundreds of them leaving all their belongings to the lava.

Flights are currently reaching La Palma’s airport, which has been closed twice during the eruption due to volcanic ash.

Weather forecasts suggest it will be able to remain open for at least the next four days.

Star Trek’s William Shatner, one of history’s most recognizable science fiction stars, finally became a real space traveler Wednesday on Blue Origin’s second crewed mission, calling it the most profound experience of his life.

“It was unbelievable,” said the 90-year-old Canadian, who played Captain James T. Kirk in the television series more than half a century ago, was moved to tears after the 11-minute journey beyond Earth’s atmosphere and back again to the Texas desert.

A New Shepard rocket took off from the company’s base around 9:49 am (1449 GMT) after experiencing two brief delays, eventually soaring to 66 miles (106 kilometers) above sea level.

Shatner was joined by Blue Origin executive Audrey Powers, Planet Labs co-founder Chris Boshuizen, an Australian national, and Glen de Vries of clinical research platform Medidata Solutions.

Founder Jeff Bezos was on hand to greet the crew members as they climbed out of the capsule and were showered with applause and champagne.

Like the roughly 600 astronauts who have gone before him, Shatner marveled at the experience of weightlessness and the stunning view of our world from space.

“What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine. I’m so filled with emotion about what just happened,” he told Bezos.

“You look down, and there’s the blue down there, and the black up there … there is mother Earth, and just comfort, and there is just –- is that death?”

The mission was a replay of the company’s maiden human flight in July, which included Bezos and was seen as a breakthrough moment for the nascent space tourism sector.

This time around, all attention was focused on Shatner, who became the oldest-ever astronaut, despite an appearance suggesting a man decades younger.

The intergalactic voyages of the USS Enterprise, commanded by Shatner’s character Kirk, helped turn American attention to the stars as the US space program was starting out.

“Captain Kirk… represents ‘the final frontier’ perhaps more than anyone else for a couple different generations of people, in the US and worldwide,” screenwriter and Trek historian Marc Cushman told AFP.

Shatner, also known for his role as lawyer Denny Crane in “Boston Legal,” among many others, has spoken in the past about an at-times difficult relationship with Star Trek and its fan culture.

But in recent years, the actor has leaned into the fame brought about by his most famous role. 

“Let’s go along with it and enjoy the ride,” he said in a video release before the launch.

– Space tourism heating up –

For Blue Origin, meanwhile, a second mission in less than three months represents another step forward as it tries to establish itself as space tourism’s leading player.

Boshuizen and Vries brought the company’s total number of paying customers to three, after Dutch teen Oliver Daemen who was on board the first flight.

Competition in the sector is heating up.

Virgin Galactic, which offers a similar experience of a few minutes’ weightlessness and a view of the Earth’s curvature from the cosmos, launched its founder Richard Branson in July, a few days before Bezos.

And in September, SpaceX sent four private citizens on a three-day trip whizzing around the planet — an altogether more ambitious, but also likely far more expensive endeavor.

For many space enthusiasts, Shatner’s voyage was a fitting coda for a pop culture phenomenon that inspired generations of astronauts, scientists and engineers.

The show has had a long-running association with NASA, whose scientists were sent early scripts to vet their accuracy, according to Cushman, the writer.

“Those scientists, as well as nearly everyone at those space agencies, were avid Star Trek watchers, and they well understood that the popularity of the series helped spark growing interest and funding for the space program,” he said.

Another mega-fan: Bezos himself.

The Amazon founder shared an Instagram post of Star Trek artwork he made when he was nine years old, which included a communication device that influenced flip phone design decades later.

Bezos has said Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant was inspired by the conversational computer on the Enterprise, and he even made a cameo as an alien in the 2016 film “Star Trek Beyond,” sporting an egg-shaped head.

Humans’ love for cheese and beer goes back a long way. But according to a scientific study published Wednesday, workers at a salt mine in Austria were already enjoying blue cheese and beer as far back as 2,700 years ago.

Scientists made the discovery by analyzing samples of human excrement found at the heart of the Hallstatt mine in the Austrian Alps. The study was published in the journal Current Biology on Wednesday.

Frank Maixner, a microbiologist at the Eurac Research Institute in Bolzano, Italy, who was the lead author of the  report, said he was surprised to learn that salt miners over two millennia ago were advanced enough to “use fermentation intentionally.”

“This is very sophisticated in my opinion,” Maixner told AFP. “This is something I did not expect at that time.”

The finding was the earliest evidence to date of cheese ripening in Europe, according to researchers.

And while alcohol consumption is certainly well documented in older writings and archaeological evidence, the salt miners’ feces contained the first molecular evidence of beer consumption on the continent at that time.

“It is becoming increasingly clear that not only were prehistoric culinary practices sophisticated, but also that complex processed foodstuffs as well as the technique of fermentation have held a prominent role in our early food history,” said Kerstin Kowarik of the Museum of Natural History Vienna.

The town of Hallstatt, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has been used for salt production for more than 3,000 years, according to Maixner. 

The community “is a very particular place, it’s located in the Alps, in the middle of nowhere,” he explained. “The whole community worked and lived from this mine.”

The miners spent their entire days there, working, eating and going to the bathroom right there, at the mine.

It is thanks to the constant temperature of around 8C (46F) and the high concentration of salt at the mine that the miners’ feces were preserved particularly well. 

Researchers analyzed four samples: one dating back to the Bronze Age, two from the Iron Age, and one from the 18th century.

One of them, about 2,700 years old, was found to contain two fungi, Penicillium roqueforti and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Both are known today for their use in food making.

Star Trek’s William Shatner, one of science-fiction’s most recognizable characters, became a real life space traveler Wednesday on Blue Origin’s second human mission.

“It was unbelievable,” said the 90-year-old Canadian, who was moved to tears after the 11-minute journey beyond the planet’s atmosphere and back again to the Texas desert.

The New Shepard rocket took off around 9:49 am (1449 GMT) after experiencing two brief delays.

Shatner was joined by Blue Origin executive Audrey Powers, Planet Labs co-founder Chris Boshuizen, an Australian national, and Glen de Vries of clinical research platform Medidata Solutions.

Company founder Jeff Bezos was on hand to greet the crew members as they climbed out of the capsule and were showered with applause and champagne.

Like the 600 or so astronauts who have gone before him, Shatner marveled at the experience of weightlessness and the stunning view of Earth from space.

“What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine. I’m so filled with emotion about what just happened,” he told Bezos.

The mission was a replay of the company’s maiden human flight in July, which included Bezos and was seen as a breakthrough moment for the nascent space tourism sector.

This time around, all attention was focused on Shatner, who became the oldest-ever astronaut, despite an appearance suggesting a man decades younger.

The intergalactic voyages of the USS Enterprise, commanded by Shatner’s character Captain James T. Kirk, helped turn American attention to the stars as the US space program was starting out.

“Captain Kirk… represents ‘the final frontier’ perhaps more than anyone else for a couple different generations of people, in the US and worldwide,” screenwriter and Trek historian Marc Cushman told AFP.

Shatner, also known for his role as lawyer Denny Crane in “Boston Legal,” among many others, has spoken in the past about an at-times difficult relationship with Star Trek and its fan culture.

But in recent years, the actor has leaned into the fame brought about by his most famous role. 

“It looks like there’s a great deal of curiosity in this fictional character, Captain Kirk,” he said in a video released by Blue Origin. 

“Let’s go along with it and enjoy the ride.”

– Space tourism heating up –

For Blue Origin, meanwhile, a second mission in less than three months represents another step forward as it tries to establish itself as space tourism’s leading player.

Boshuizen and Vries brought the company’s total number of paying customers to three, after Dutch teen Oliver Daemen who was on board the first flight.

Competition in the sector is heating up.

Virgin Galactic, which offers a similar experience of a few minutes’ weightlessness and a view of the Earth’s curvature from the cosmos, launched its founder Richard Branson in July, a few days before Bezos.

And in September, SpaceX sent four private citizens on a three-day trip whizzing around the planet — an altogether more ambitious, but also likely far more expensive endeavor.

For many space enthusiasts, Shatner’s voyage was a fitting coda for a pop culture phenomenon that inspired generations of astronauts, scientists and engineers.

The show has had a long-running association with NASA, whose scientists were sent early scripts to vet their accuracy, according to Cushman, the writer.

“Those scientists, as well as nearly everyone at those space agencies, were avid Star Trek watchers, and they well understood that the popularity of the series helped spark growing interest and funding for the space program,” he said.

Another mega-fan: Bezos himself.

The Amazon founder shared an Instagram post of Star Trek artwork he made when he was nine years old, which included a communication device that influenced flip phone design decades later.

Bezos has said Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant was inspired by the conversational computer on the Enterprise, and he even made a cameo as an alien in the 2016 film “Star Trek Beyond,” sporting an egg-shaped head.

“Star Trek” actor William Shatner is set to boldly go where no 90-year-old has gone before when he blasts off to space Wednesday on Blue Origin’s second crewed mission.

The Canadian — who will forever be known to the sci-fi show’s legion of “Trekkies” as Captain James Tiberius Kirk — will take off from the company’s West Texas base at 9:30 am (1430 GMT).

Countdown was paused for around 30 minutes for final checks, briefly delaying the launch.

Shatner will be joined on the New Shepard rocket by Blue Origin executive Audrey Powers, Planet Labs co-founder Chris Boshuizen, an Australian national, and Glen de Vries of clinical research platform Medidata Solutions.

Company founder Jeff Bezos was on hand to greet the crew members as they made their way up the launch tower and entered the spaceship.

The journey lasts around 11 minutes and will see the crew soar beyond the Karman Line — the internationally recognized boundary of space, 62 miles (100 kilometers) high  — before the capsule floats back to Earth on parachutes for a gentle landing in the desert.

It’s an action replay of the company’s maiden human flight in July, which included Bezos and was seen as a breakthrough moment for the nascent space tourism sector.

This time around, nearly all attention will be focused on Shatner, who at 90 will become the oldest-ever astronaut, despite an appearance suggesting a man decades younger.

The intergalactic voyages of the USS Enterprise, commanded by Captain Kirk, helped turn American attention to the stars as the US space program was starting out.

“Captain Kirk… represents ‘the final frontier’ perhaps more than anyone else for a couple different generations of people, in the US and worldwide,” screenwriter and Trek historian Marc Cushman told AFP.

Shatner, also known for his role as lawyer Denny Crane in “Boston Legal,” among many others, has spoken in the past about an at-times difficult relationship with Star Trek and its fan culture.

But in recent years, the actor has leaned into the fame brought about by his most famous role. 

“It looks like there’s a great deal of curiosity in this fictional character, Captain Kirk,” he said in a video released by Blue Origin. 

“Let’s go along with it and enjoy the ride.”

– Space tourism heating up –

For Blue Origin, meanwhile, a second mission in less than three months represents another step forward as it tries to establish itself as space tourism’s leading player.

Boshuizen and Vries will bring the company’s total number of paying customers to three, after Dutch teen Oliver Daemen became the first during the first flight.

Competition in the sector is heating up.

Virgin Galactic, which offers a similar experience of a few minutes’ weightlessness and a view of the Earth’s curvature from the cosmos, launched its founder Richard Branson in July, a few days before Bezos.

And in September, SpaceX sent four private citizens on a three-day trip whizzing around the planet — an altogether more ambitious, but also likely far more expensive endeavor.

“We’re just at the beginning — but how miraculous that beginning is, how extraordinary it is to be part of that beginning,” said Shatner in his video message.

For many space enthusiasts, Shatner’s voyage is a fitting coda for a pop culture phenomenon that inspired generations of astronauts, scientists and engineers.

The show has had a long-running association with NASA, whose scientists were sent early scripts to vet their accuracy, according to Cushman, the writer.

“Those scientists, as well as nearly everyone at those space agencies, were avid Star Trek watchers, and they well understood that the popularity of the series helped spark growing interest and funding for the space program,” he said.

Another mega-fan: Bezos himself.

The Amazon founder shared an Instagram post of Star Trek artwork he made when he was nine years old, which included a communication device that influenced flip phone design decades later.

Bezos has said Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant was inspired by the conversational computer on the Enterprise, and he even made a cameo as an alien in the 2016 film “Star Trek Beyond,” sporting an egg-shaped head.

Hurricane Pamela made landfall on the western coast of Mexico Wednesday as a Category One storm, with life-threatening storm surge and heavy rainfall predicted, the US National Hurricane Center said.

At 1200 GMT, Pamela crossed on to land about 65 kilometers (40 miles) north of the Pacific port of Mazatlan, in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, with sustained winds of 120 kph (75 mph) and was moving at 22 kph (14 mph), according to data from the Miami-based NHC.

The “center of Hurricane Pamela was making landfall on the west-central coast of Mexico near Estacion Dimas,” a community of about 3,600 inhabitants, the NHC reported. 

The storm had initially been forecast to hit as a major hurricane — above a Category Three on the Saffir-Simpson scale of five — but weakened as it approached the coast and was even briefly downgraded to a tropical storm.

It is expected to weaken again as it moves over land.

In Mazatlan, 16 US citizens were in shelters after being stranded at the local airport when their flights were cancelled due to bad weather.

Authorities called on residents of rural areas to move to shelters due to the risk of flooding.

The NHC said heavy rainfall may trigger flash flooding and mudslides as Pamela tracks into the Mexican states Sinaloa, Durango and Nayarit.

Storm surges are expected to produce “significant” coastal flooding and “large and destructive waves,” the center added.

The remnants of Pamela could drench portions of Texas and Oklahoma by late Wednesday and Thursday with the potential for “considerable flash and urban flooding impacts.”

Because of its location, Mexico is often hit by tropical storms and hurricanes on both its Pacific and Atlantic coasts.

In August, Hurricane Nora made landfall in the Pacific state of Jalisco, killing a child and leaving one person missing.

Hurricane Grace left at least 11 dead on the eastern coast of Mexico’s mainland the same month.

In September, Hurricane Olaf made landfall on the Baja California peninsula, causing minor damage.

“Star Trek” actor William Shatner is set to boldly go where no 90-year-old has gone before when he blasts off to space Wednesday on Blue Origin’s second crewed mission.

The Canadian — who will forever be known to the sci-fi show’s legion of “Trekkies” as Captain James Tiberius Kirk — will launch from the company’s West Texas base at 9 am (1400 GMT), after a day’s delay due to high winds.

He will be joined on the New Shepard rocket by Blue Origin executive Audrey Powers, Planet Labs co-founder Chris Boshuizen, and Glen de Vries, a co-founder of clinical research platform Medidata Solutions.

“Our #NS18 crew has arrived onsite at Launch Site One and getting suited up for the flight,” tweeted Blue Origin, using the mission’s official name.

The journey lasts around 11 minutes and will see the crew soar beyond the Karman Line — the internationally recognized boundary of space, 62 miles (100 kilometers) high  — before the craft floats back to Earth on parachutes for a gentle landing in the desert.

It’s an action replay of the company’s maiden human flight in July, which included owner Jeff Bezos and was seen as a breakthrough moment for the nascent space tourism sector.

This time around, nearly all attention will be focused on Shatner, who at 90 will become the oldest-ever astronaut, despite an appearance suggesting a man decades younger.

The intergalactic voyages of the Star Trek Enterprise ship, commanded by Captain Kirk, helped turn American attention to the stars as the US space program was starting out.

“Captain Kirk… represents ‘the final frontier’ perhaps more than anyone else for a couple different generations of people, in the US and worldwide,” screenwriter and Trek historian Marc Cushman told AFP.

Shatner, also known for his role as lawyer Denny Crane in “Boston Legal,” among many others, has spoken in the past about an at-times difficult relationship with Star Trek and its fan culture.

But in recent years, the actor has leaned into the fame brought about by his most famous role. 

“It looks like there’s a great deal of curiosity in this fictional character, Captain Kirk,” he said in a video released by Blue Origin. 

“Let’s go along with it and enjoy the ride.”

– Space tourism heating up –

For Blue Origin, meanwhile, a second mission in less than three months represents another step forward as it tries to establish itself as space tourism’s leading player.

Boshuizen and Vries will bring the company’s total number of paying customers to three — though prices haven’t been disclosed.

The competition is heating up.

Virgin Galactic, which offers a similar experience of a few minutes’ weightlessness and a view of the Earth’s curvature from the cosmos, launched its founder Richard Branson in July, a few days before Bezos.

And in September, SpaceX sent four private citizens on a three-day trip whizzing around the planet — an altogether more ambitious, but also likely far more expensive endeavor.

“We’re just at the beginning — but how miraculous that beginning is, how extraordinary it is to be part of that beginning,” said Shatner in his video message.

For many space enthusiasts, Shatner’s voyage is a fitting coda for a pop culture phenomenon that inspired generations of astronauts, scientists and engineers.

The show has had a long-running association with NASA, whose scientists were sent early scripts to vet their accuracy, according to Cushman, the writer.

“Those scientists, as well as nearly everyone at those space agencies, were avid Star Trek watchers, and they well understood that the popularity of the series helped spark growing interest and funding for the space program,” he said.

Another mega-fan: Bezos himself.

The Amazon founder shared an Instagram post of Star Trek artwork he made when he was nine years old, which included a communication device that influenced flip phone design decades later.

Bezos has said Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant was inspired by the conversational computer on the Enterprise, and he even made a cameo as an alien in the 2016 film “Star Trek Beyond,” sporting an egg-shaped head.