I am following you here, but I also took this another way. I think what this comment was about was a person who recognizes his own mortality but could put that

I am following you here, but I also took this another way. I think what this comment was about was a person who recognizes his own mortality but could put that against the backdrop of the bigger picture of our own shared human mortality. I believe Shatner was recognizing the pure inhospitability of space to human life and the fact that we are propelling ourselves into it. If anything I think this was precisely a commentary on the very nature of the risk and adventure that space represents. Also a recognition of how much we thread the needle even just living on the Earth. For if it were not that true exploration and adventure came at risk of life and limb, if the very risk of living did not include the risk of death, then what is it really? Thinking of the early explorers of the Earth, many who died doing so, and who risked it all in the name of exploration and adventure. If I ever heard a more realistic characterization of what it truly means "to boldly go" where no one has gone before... I can't think of it. I am eager to see further debriefing from Shatner, I think he will have much to say. In so far as they wanted to achieve sending a different kind of personality to space, to learn what human experience would be like, I think this was an incredible success.. putting all the commercial aspects aside.